Ann Steer aka E-less

	Along with my husband and our 2 FlatCoated retrievers, we live in Montreal, Quebec which thankfully is still in Canada. We have a small house north of the city which we have spent many years renovating and fixing. Currently, all the undone projects are no longer visible to us as we both spend inordinate amounts of time staring at and muttering to our computers. We have very different approaches to computers, I just want to be a user, he wants to fix things. He is a very knowledgeable systems analyst type, whereas I am very impatient and just want the thing to do what I think it should. I tend to leave a lot of the technical details to him and consider myself very fortunate to be able to rely on him.
	However, it is really our wonderful dogs which keep us sane and able to cope. We're happiest when we're doing the things they like to do such as ski-joring, hiking, camping, canoeing and just simply walking outside and sniffing. We also have some land in the Adirondacks where we hope to build a small dome shelter this year.
	I was born in Germany and emigrated to the US at age 9. In college, I returned to Germany and studied one year at the Hochschule fuer Gestaltung in Ulm. [in Ulm, um Ulm und um Ulm herum] I have returned several times to Germany and am always thankful to leave - it is very crowded and there is not a lot of wilderness.
	I work for one of the United Nations specialized agencies, ICAO, as an Illustrator. My background is mainly in graphic design, presently I am involved in a project to implement an Intranet and am desperately trying to learn more. I started in my job doing mechanical drafting using the old pincette type ink pens [the ones with a set screw that determined the width of the line of ink being applied which would run out just before the end of the line] My job has changed from using drafting tables to computers and from simple layout to desktop publishing to web page design. Having weathered the change from mechanical drawing to computer graphics, I believe that the Internet is another means of communication and will have a greater impact than the advent of desktop publishing.
	It is really the group participation here at Spectrum Virtual University that has made the class such a valuable experience. Although I have not contributed as much as I should have to the group project, I have gained a great deal and have vast resources to draw upon. I consider myself particularly fortunate to be part of the Societal group, they are a very knowledgeable, talented, patient and ever helpful collection of individuals. There's Anne, who has the patience of a saint, Shadrak, the godfather of the group, Tina, the source of wonderful graphics, Ingo, the group guru, Chris, who's ever ready for a challenge, Sal, who dislikes frames, Liz who has found so many wonderful links and Cynthia, the pink flamingo. What a great community they have built here. Return to Societal