A belated introduction

There's a steady stream of work here on the obits desk -- so steady, in fact, that I've been writing here for six months and haven't yet introduced myself. Here goes:

I grew up in Arlington reading The Washington Post and then moved west for college. Smitten with its wide skies and long views, I stayed for more than a decade, working as a wilderness ranger in Idaho and Wyoming and as a middle-school math teacher in Juneau, Alaska.

After leaving the classroom, I spent the better part of a year holed up in a cabin on Oregon's Rogue River, reading, writing and watching bats dip and swing against a backdrop of stars. I went back to Alaska for a spell in 2007 to moonlight as a salmon fisherman before settling in for a couple of years at UC Berkeley's journalism school.

I'm thrilled be at The Post and to be writing obituaries -- for someone who likes to explore, there's no better job.