About me

A brief history of me:

On Friday June 12, 2015 (sorry: 12 guigno 2015) I moved to Monterotondo scalo, Italy from Frederick, Maryland USA.  Monterotondo scalo is about 20 miles (30km) outside of Rome and is near where I now work.  With this blog, I intend to document my adventures living in a new country. Mostly, this is to keep a log for myself and family with pictures and funny stories to remember but hopefully some of my friends will find this interesting or at least a bit amusing.  If you know me, you know I don't take myself too seriously so be prepared for some silliness.  I will still post things on Facebook but this forum gives me a bit more space to discuss things.  Feel free to subscribe to this and when I think posts are interesting, I will post a link on FB as well.

In this very first post, perhaps it is best I start with a brief history of why I am here, why I chose the title of the blog etc.  This background will hopefully understand a bit more about me and build a foundation for future posts. Here goes nothing!

I was born in Butte, Montana USA (pauses for all the "butt" jokes), AKA,  BUTTE AMERICA!  For those old enough to know of him, Butte was also the home of Evel Kneivel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evel_Knievel). You youngsters can look him up on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOR8yHjxses.  My Dad used to play hockey with him! I lived many places before I knew I was alive but most of my early memories are from a bit further north in Helena, Montana where I spent ages 4-18. From 5 years old, I was in this house on Flowerree street:

From the back of the house, you can see Mt Helena, a place I spent many hours alone hiking and having adventures.

  I attended Capital High School in Helena - Go BRUINS!  
Helena is a town of about 25,000 people.  It is the captital of the Big Sky State and really is a "city" by Montana's standards.  So no, I did not ride a horse to school but I did walk 5 miles through 4 feet of snow all year long, without shoes and it was uphill both ways!  It was a great place to grow up and I will forever call it home...even though I haven't lived there in 34 years now.  How the heck did that happen? When I go back now, I am reminded how beautiful it is. When you live somewhere too long, you tend not to notice things...


From Helena, I went to college at the University of Utah - Go UTES!

I got my BS in biology with an emphasis on genetics and as a junior landed a great job, my first "real" job working in a lab with world renowned bacterial geneticist, John Roth.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roth_(geneticist)  I owe John a lot. I thought I was hired to do dishes but no, I started doing original research from day one as John had faith in me.  He got me started in his passion, bacterial genetics and is still a huge inspiration to me.  I wouldn't do what I do if it wasn't for John! I still see him as often as possible, perhaps in New Zealand early next year.   

In Helena during "spring" break (still winter in Montana) during my freshman year (1982) I met a girl. We didn't hit it off immediately as we were both smart asses.  I know that will be a surprise to many. But that summer, I saw her again, we started dating, and in December of 1984 I married that girlfriend, Barb Duke. Who gets married in December in Montana on a TUESDAY no less?  Well, her Mom, a huge football fan, refused to miss Monday Night Football and I wanted my friends to be home from college so that is what we did.  Yes, it was bitterly cold.  My Mom decided to be nice and get us the honeymoon suite at a local hotel complete with a waterbed.  Waterbeds were all the rage back then! What happened to them?  Anyway, turns out, the bed was very cool...as in frigid cold as they never plugged it in!  We ended up yanking the covers off the bed and sleeping on the floor in the honeymoon suite as the bed was just too cold to stay in.  We had all of our tires on our car knifed that night too so it was an interesting night.  Six months later I got my degree in June of '85 but stayed around another year as a master's student (to keep from paying back student loans) to finish some work in John's lab.  It was a wonderful experience and a good warm up for graduate school. It was also nice because that last year my brother Allen and his wife Arleen moved to Salt Lake City. We had some great times. Seemed whenever we got together it was an adventure but that is for another blog. Allen? Arleen?


I went to graduate school at the University of Oregon - GO DUCKS - in the fall of 1986.

Most awesome mascot anywhere!

I immediately fell in love with Oregon, especially Eugene.  The football team at that time in a word, sucked.  Made it easy to get the free student tickets, however, and watching football at Autzen stadium is AWESOME!  BTW, at least according to the signs in Eugene, it seems that every road leads to Autzen. I don't think we missed a home game the entire time we were there. It was free entertainment and we were poor living on a graduate student stipend.  Probably the biggest highlight for football was beating (then ranked #1) BYU big time.  Graduate school was amazing, one of the best periods of my life.  I would be at "work" often 10-12 hours or so per day, even on weekends, and loved every minute of it. It was working hard on something I wanted to do which was new.  It definitely wasn't easy but it was great. After working a quarter (10 weeks) in 3 different labs I made the hard decision to stay in Frank Stahl's lab. I didn't expect it would be hard but I also enjoyed the other two labs I rotated in.  Frank is famous for an experiment on DNA replication that he did very early in his career but his passion is genetic recombination. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Stahl  This is a passion he passed onto me and that sticks with me to this day. Frank is a brilliant scientist, figuring out my results long before I did nearly every time. He allowed us to make mistakes but not stray too far and encouraged us to take chances.  He was very good at keeping tabs on everyone in the lab. IMHO, although he has won many awards, he has not received the recognition he should. The Stahl lab was CRAZY and so much fun. One would never know what crazy thing would happen next... This is where the term "reindeer games" was invented. Those in the know, know. :)

Before leaving Eugene, ~1990 or so, something happened that changed my life. I mention it as I am sure it will come up in future blogs. I started homebrewing. We had a pear tree in our yard and literally 100's of pounds of ripe pears would fall out of the HUGE tree, land on our roof and roll onto the ground. How did they know to do this in the middle of the night? We made pear crisp, pear jam, pear cakes, pear turnovers, pear....well that is about it (ala Forest Gump). One day, I decided too many were going to waste and it was time to ferment them. What else could a scientist do?  For the most part, my first fermentation, perry, was a failure as only a few bottles were good and it took about 6 months to make it.  It was great for cooking fish, however!  So next, with the encouragement of homebrewing friends I decided to make beer. I figured that at least if it was bad it would be ready sooner right?  It was great and I have never turned back, making homemade beer for going on 25 years now.

It was very hard to leave Eugene as it is an amazing place.  Three months before I left, something huge happened that changed my life forever, Kyle was born and I became a father.  Having a child changes your life in ways that are impossible to imagine.

Kyle (2002) at age 9 (need to wait for older photos to arrive on ship so I can scan them!)

I received my PhD in biology in August of 1993 and we moved all the way to the other coast, Frederick, Maryland (with a 6 month old) in November; a great time of year to drive nearly 3000 miles! I did my postdoctoral studies with Stuart Austin, studying plasmid and chromosome segregation. Basically, how when cells divide each daughter cell gets a full copy of its genetic code. In 1997, another huge event rocked my world....Sean was born!  

Sean (age 5). Again, waiting for older pics to arrive

I won't dwell on this next section as it is difficult to write about and not pleasant for anyone. Even before Sean was born, things were not going great in our marriage. After Sean was born, things went bad fast and when he was only 5 months old, Barb and I separated, unfortunately for good. We tried to work things but in December of 2001, after 17 years of marriage to the day, we were officially divorced. Was this marriage a failure? I argue not! How can living with somebody for 13 years and making two wonderful little boys be a failure? Barb was a great person, she still is. We just were not fully compatible in all ways and with time we grew apart.  

The next big event surprised everyone, yours truly included. After a grueling three day custody hearing I was awarded full custody of both young boys in January of 2002. I was told that never happens in Maryland. Of course I was THRILLED to have them but I fully expected that Barb would move back to the area (she was living in Montana with the boys at the time) to be near them and we would share "joint" custody. That never happened. Less than 5 days after the conclusion of the trial the boys were back living with me in Frederick. What a scramble that was!  Since then, I have put my all into raising them and have done my best over the years to keep her involved at every turn. I am happy to report, they have turned out great. Updates in future posts I am sure.

About this same time (~April 2001), I moved about 100 feet and joined the lab of Don Court. Don was just beginning work on a new up and coming technique for efficiently making genetic changes on any piece of DNA at will.  Powerful and important technology. With my background of genetic recombination from Frank's lab, Don took me on as a permanent employee. Don is a wonderful boss, I have been lucky with all of my bosses. He is one of those people that is so smart but feels no need to "advertise" it.  Again, he doesn't get the recognition he should but all that know him know he has contributed an incredible amount to bacterial genetics.  I am honored to call him a friend and I know our friendship will continue.  I look forward to our continued relationship and he and his lab will be dearly missed.

Don Court with caffeine on shirt and in mug

My next huge event in my life occurred in 2004.  I had known Julie Bergeron for a couple years and we had really gotten to know each other well.  Perhaps better than I had ever known anyone before.   She asked VERY pointed questions! I had a major crush on her for that entire time (and even before I met her) but was content with being her friend as she was seeing somebody and so was I. That all changed at the end of the summer of 2004. About September, we both were single and we started dating. I say "about" as she knew we were dating before she told me.  She was trying me out before letting on she was interested in dating.  Clever girl.  By November (yes, two months later) we were engaged and on January 15, 2005 (yes, two months later!) we became a family of 6! I am sure many thought we were nuts.  They didn't know the obstacle course Julie had already put me through. :)  Julie had two young girls, Danielle and Andrea, and with my two young boys, we were the modern Brady Bunch. Sadly there was no Alice to help out.  I had always wanted to have a girl and now I married into two of them! :)

Jim and Julie 1/15/2005

The whole new family - Julie is now the shortest of all.

Honeymoon on the Mayan Riviera 2005

This will seem random but it fits in my timeline and I can assure you this will come up in future blogs.  At the Great Frederick Fair in 2008, I decided I would help out at the beer judging competition. I had entered beer into the comp for years and won Best of Show previously.  But I was thinking of finding out more about this "judging".  To see how it went, I signed up to steward the event. A steward brings the beer to the judges and basically gets whatever they need. They can often get to try the beer too and learn some judging from the judges. I signed up, there was a last minute cancellation so suddenly the contest was a judge short. I was recruited to judge!  I never turned back. I have been judging since and have obtained the level of National in the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP).  I am knocking on the door of Master judge but need a few more points on my exams. Interested in being a judge?  Ask me about it or go to bjcp.org. It is much more involved than you think. But yes, you do drink beer early in the morning but it is hard work....no really it is.  Really.

I could have been happy working in Don's lab forever.  What a great group of people. Unfortunately, Don is going to retire at some point in the next few years and I am not quite ready to.  Of course, this is well deserved but I would be out of work as the NCI has made it clear they don't want to continue our line of research. Short sighted but that is another story. Don encouraged me to find another job but it happened faster than either of us was ready. So... 

Julie has wanted to live in Europe since before I met her.  We were lucky to meet as she almost moved to Germany before we did!  For years, Julie has been "finding" me jobs to apply for in Europe. Some were crazy, like working on an organic farm. Sounds great, I am not knocking that job and may well do it in the future but I wasn't ready to give up my professional training yet.  Her most desired destination was Italy and even more than that, Rome. I did apply for a job in Germany in 2012 but was not interviewed.  I think Julie had just about given up on her dream... 

In September of 2014, my friend Adam Parks changed the course of our lives. He was looking for jobs and one day announced, "Jim, I found your job". I informed him I wasn't looking but he said, "No, you need to look at this one" and proceeded to email me the description.  I applied, was interviewed via skype about 2 days after the deadline, the next day was invited for an in person interview in November and after our negotiations, I began work at European Molecular Biology Laboratories (EMBL) - Monterotondo on June 15, 2015.  I am very thankful that they allowed me to be around for Sean's senior year of high school.  Leaving the kids, all now adults, behind is the hardest part of this whole story. I know they are adults and ready to live their own lives.  But I still want them around.  Hopefully, they will visit soon.

There, perhaps not so brief (boxer?) but this will give some context to my future posts!  Thank you for reading.  

Molte Grazie 

Ciao