Thomas Adrian Dorn

Brief Bio | Scrapbook

EXPERIENCE

Writer/Researcher In between other things -- like commercial fishing and boat building -- I've written extensively over the past thirty years, including two novels, one a science-fantasy and the other about the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989, as well as many short stories and poetry. Selected writings, mostly fantasy and science fiction, can be accessed at: Stories by Adrian Dorn.

InterNet Information Portal One avocation I've come to enjoy is research, whether through the Internet or libraries. From January, '95 to November, '98 I maintained an educational and information site in the form of a Meta-Library on the Web called "Center Stage." At the time, it was designed to illustrate the architecture of the Internet and the World Wide Web while offering extensive sources for research and exploration. Presently, I am running a reincarnation of that at: Center Stage - The Meta-Library

Computer Troubleshooting and WebSite Design Troubleshooting is always a black-box affair. Everything worked fine once, then, something happened and it no longer does. What was it? What did YOU do? Or is it an invasion? A virus, malware, spyware, a trojan horse? What? Troubleshooting not only includes being able to logically zero in on the source, or possible sources, of a problem, but also to deal with other people, to ask the right questions. And as far as website design goes, I offer mine as portfolio.

Mathematics Teacher Prince William Sound Community College, Cordova, Alaska; from 1987 to spring of '91. Subjects: Algebra (high school and college levels), Linear Algebra, Calculus; have tutored many individuals over the years, mostly in algebra.

Commercial Fisherman From 1978 to '94, I fished (Longline, Purse Seine, Gillnet) and tendered (salmon and herring) the waters bordering Alaska from Toksook Bay to the Pribilofs to Atka (the Aleutians), the Shelikoff Strait, Cook Inlet, Resurrection Bay, Prince William Sound, the waters off Sitka and the Gulf of Alaska. I also trolled off the coasts of Washington and Oregon. I worked on 25 different boats, from a 36-foot troller [Alki] to a 90-foot power scow [Lady Simpson]. Owned (with one partner) and operated a 58-foot longline boat from 1991 to '94, concentrating around the Aleutian Islands and the Kodiak Archipelago, fishing for halibut and black cod. Navigation and Helmsmanship are my specialties.

In '96 I began to lose my eyesight due to cataract damage on the lenses and so wasn't able to work that year. I had surgery in January of '97 and then again in May. Since then I've remodeled houses, tutored mathematics and computer-eze -- teaching people how to not only use their basic PC but the ins and outs of the Internet and email. I also worked for six months onboard one of the Barnum & Bailey Circus trains posing as an electrician for the last half of 1999. In spring of 2001 I started working for the Landfall Restaurant in Port Townsend, Washington. I worked there part time while continuing to teach and spend a great deal of time writing. The Restaurant closed October 12th, 2009. Other jobs I've done: In the summer of 1973 I worked outside Craig, Colorado as a "jug-hustler," a slang term for a dynamiter. My job was to put five ten-pound sticks, capping the last, down a 200-foot hole we'd just drilled for purposes of seismographic testing for oil. It's how they did it back then. Now I understand they use a giant tamping machine. Through my college years and the year after I quit graduate school in 1971 I worked at a wholesale lumber yard in East Lansdown, Pennsylvania. I built fiberglass boats -- Radoncraft gillnetters and five 58-foot Alaska limit seiners -- during the years 1976 to 1979 in Port Townsend, Washington. After that I got into commercial fishing and traveling.

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