Richard was born in Washington, DC on March 23, 1945, ten minutes after his twin brother Paul. He grew up in Takoma Park, MD, just across the District line. After a happy pre-adolescence and an unhappy adolescence (that's a summary!), he was drafted into the Army (April 4, 1967). During the Vietnam War he was sent to San Francisco to serve his tour of duty in the Casualty Reporting Office. There he met his future wife, Chrisann Haase, who gave birth to his only child, Jennifer in March of 1970. He received a Bachelor's Degree in Art (Interdisciplinary Studies with an emphasis in Film Animation) at San Francisco State University in 1975. He and Chrisann divorced amicably that same year.
In the fall of 1975 Richard went to work for the San Francisco Municipal Railway Revenue Department, where he worked for 32 years, ending his career as a Sr. Business Analyst for the Revenue Section. He retired in June of 2007, but worked part-time from home for an additional three years.
His intellectual interests are Art, Philosophy, and Buddhism, and in the area of computers, so-called Machine Intelligence and Natural Language Processing. Musically, he enjoys Classical, late night or Sixties Jazz, and American Blues/Gospel/Roots, and Sixties Rock music.
He has been interested in computers since the early 1970's, and began programming with an HP calculator in 1978. Later with an Apple II, and an Amiga, he enjoyed programming using the Forth language. He has created several web sites in the past, and continues to be excited about the possibilities that the digital age has to offer.
He currently enjoys cartooning, photography, movies, meditating, and traveling with his girlfriend Jeanne.