Maurice’s first and enduring love has been languages. His second love is science. His first BA, in 1969, was in French with a minor in German. Realizing that no human has ever had a decent command of even one percent of the living languages, he turned to a more generalized study and took his Masters Degree in Linguistics in 1970. Further encroachment by reality led to the acceptance that outside of teaching, languages were not a lucrative profession. He did time in retail until hitting upon the happy idea of becoming an attorney. Taking his JD in 1976, he practiced law for a decade and retired in 1987. He spent some time studying electronics, computer science and chemistry. In 1991, he was able to return to languages, accepting a post at the university level, teaching English as a foreign language, while taking up the study of Japanese. He received the University of Colorado’s 1992-1993 Katherine J. Lamont Award for outstanding scholarship in an oriental language, and graduated magna cum laude in Japanese in 1993. From 1993 to 1996 he taught scientific English in Japan at Tokyo Denki University as an Assistant Professor. Since then he has spent time traveling, philosophizing, writing, reading science articles and indulging his passion for languages, from Russian and Chinese to American Sign Language. His current best languages are Spanish and Portuguese.
As well as a deep affection for science, he has a serious interest in vampires, magic, metaphysics and gay issues, all of which are occasionally reflected in these pages. Among his other interests are chess, cards, martial arts and world history.