Since Graduating:
From Yahoo Group posting 10/13/08:
George Randolph Macdonald
12425 W. 86th Ave, Arvada, CO 80005
303 4670930
Attended U of R 1965-1968, Majors: English, then Geology
Graduated U of Colorado BS, Engineering Physics, 1980
Graduated U of Colorado MS Civil Engineering, emphasis Solar Design, 1984
Registered Professional Engineer, 1985
But the real stories are always between the lines. I had no idea what to study, what to do in life when I came to the U of R. A cute girl in my high school math class said that her father went there, and I should go there. So I did. The U of R and BDG became a carnival of activities (music, dramatics, the brothers, pursuing girls, occasional classes) which did little to point to any specific direction in life. With abysmal grades and little money I left in 1968, to become draftable 1-A with a very low number. I sought and received status as a conscientious objector, and was assigned to Boston. These were the days of political demonstrations, mind altering substances, and the Beatles telling us where we should go next. Marching with the Panthers, riots at Northeastern (S.I.Hiakawa), a long line of VW's, macrobiotics, and Woodstock.
In 1970 I followed a girl friend to Boulder, looking for communes. The long line of VW's led to work in Parts and Service in an independent VW shop. The owner of the shop turned first to Scientology, then drugs, then accessory to murder. His partner, formerly a Nazi in the German army, was horrified. Meanwhile, I had met my future wife, Fran, in 1971, at a "pick 'n sing". She was accepted to medical school, while I kept us in VW's. We married in 1976, and a subsequent road trip to Mexico and Guatamala (in the VW micro bus, with a spare short block engine in the back) inspired me to go back to school.
Worked for a year at NIST (formerly National Bureau of Standards) in cryogenics.
Worked for 2 years for an engineering firm doing HVAC in new Denver high rises. Didn't like it.
Worked 2 years at Rocky Flats, part of the nuclear weapons complex, in Facilities Design. The belly of the beast.
By now, 1986, we had two daughters, 5 and 3, and a son on the way. Serendipity led to me leaving Rocky Flats to start an asbestos abatement company with a partner, a former NBA basketball player. The company grew until, at the height, we had 160 employees in several states. This was a personally transformative time. I've always been a bit of an adrenaline junkie, but this was holding the tiger by the tail. We liquidated the company in 1998, and I've been retired since.
I became heavily involved in the creation and governance of the Jr/Sr High School that all my kids went to, with my first daughter in the first graduating class. This school is an old fashioned college prep school, stressing strong core curriculum, few electives, and hard work. It has had the highest ACT scores in Colorado each year since inception.
You may have sensed a trend here, and it's time for me to finally come out of the closet. It gives me no pleasure, but I admit it, I'm now a conservative. Gone is the log haired hippie freak that monkey wrenched the construction equipment in the mountains. I listen to Rush Limbaugh frequently. This transition has been very difficult, and has left deep scars on my relationship with my wife. She hates my global warming rant. Mel threatens a political whippin' at the reunion.
I'm most proud of my family. Fran is an internal medicine doc with Kaiser. My older daughter Mara is finishing up a PHD at MIT in bio engineering, and just got a Fulbright scholarship to study in Singapore. Erin taught English in China for a year, Peru for 6 months, and has completed her first year at Yale Law School. She's working for the International Justice Mission in DC this summer. Scott has finished sophomore year at CU in Mech-E, also pursuing biotech. And they are really good people.
These days, I volunteer at a raptor rehab facility, cleaning up bird poop, etc. I also pick up and deliver injured critters and birds for Colo Dept of Wildlife. I need a new life. I still ski, scuba, sail, and ride my motorcycle, but I'm getting old and lazy, and out of shape. We travel a lot, and live for our kids.
From: Carl Jeschke
Sent: Friday, June 20, 2008 4:05 PM
Subject: Re: Randy's Bio
Pledge MacDonald,
Are we really supposed to believe all this???!!!! It sound like a script for a movie!!!
For trying to BS the Brothers, drop down and give me 20!!!
Carl Jeschke, Pledge Marshall, 1967
P.S. - I once heard (I think from Brother Aaronson) "If you're not a liberal in you 20's, you have no heart; if you are not a conservative in you're 40's, you have no head."
At UR, you guys had me convinced that I was somewhere to the right of John Birch. Of the nine officers on my ship in Vietnam, I was the liberal; really!! It wierded me out!!! But when I got out into the "real world" , I found out i was pretty much in the middle From: GEORGE MAC*DONALD
Sent: Friday, June 20, 2008 7:01 PM
Subject: Re: Randy's Bio
I swear it's true, every word. These days, I might be able to give you ten. The quote is usually attributed to Churchill, but I think he stole it from someone. And, weren't you to the right of John Birch?
Randy, from the darkside
From: Sam Stalos
October 6, 2008, 8:15pm
I just re-read your bio and now see how I missed the connection. If the family photo had beren attached to the bio (see Randy's Family in Photo and Files section of this forum) I'm sure I would have picked up on your Oriental affiliation. Your son looks perfectly Scottish, the second daughter on the left does have strong Oriental features, which would be your wife's genes, and your other daughter must be the one with freckles, so she also picked up the Scottish side. But from your bio, it seems they all inherited their brains and sensibility from their mother, thank goodness.
I'm guessing that when you went to grade school or junior high with your kids, the teachers were thinking second marriage, or adopted, because that's the only way they could explain the difference in the way your kids looked. That's what happened to me all the time. I'd go to pick up my son and they'd have a hard time believing I was his dad.
I know most Americans have difficulty in this, but I can usually identify Chinese from Japanese from Koreans just by their facial characteristics. In the second photo of your family, attached below, I agree that your son has an exotic look, and I would be hard pressed to identify it as a mix of Chinese and wasp. By the way, isn't his name Scott, as in Scottish, as in MacDonald? Redunancy from an English major?
