Updated 6/2/07
New Homebrew Work Early Years Education Family Family Photos Koupal Story Genealogy Garden Books Various Links

New:

Ken becomes Webmaster for www.troop84bsa.org.

Janet joins Clan Douglas because she's a decendant of a Morton family line, and, well, they're nice people.

Ken donates beer bottle collection to Beer Bottle Collector. Wes has the enthusiasm to gather, display, and appreciate the art & history of beer bottles. I'm happy to hand off my work to such a worthy enthusiast.

Family gets Sirius satellite radio in May 2004.

Ken successfully summits Mt. Whitney (14.5kft) on August 1, 2003. Snow flurries and ice fog last 4 miles to top, soaking rain below in Outpost camp, spectacular (but scarry) nighttime lightning show ... can this really be summer in SoCal? And only 4 months after setting a broken toe.

Family photo album page, updated 6/4/04.

Homebrew: Home brewing is my hobby. Visit the details of my brewery here. I learned most of what I know from The Draught Board Homebrew Club!
Brewed a Hefe Weizen in March 2006. Do you have any suggestions on what to brew next? Click on the live-action beer mug to send me an e-mail.

Work: I work for Qwest as Tier3 Operations in the "Qwest Hosted Interactive Voice Response" group as a Lead Technical Project Manager. I'm building and maintaining several Interactive Voice Response (IVR) networks. It's a lot of hours but I love the challenge. I work in Sunnyvale, CA.

The Early Years: Born in San Diego at the Balboa Naval Hospital. Went to Kindergarten & part of 1st grade at Phoebe Hearst Elementary School. Moved to Walnut Creek in 1965 where I finished 1st grade at Indian Valley Elementary School. Moved again for 2nd grade. My favorite teacher, Mike Costuras, 5th grade, was at Walnut Acres Elementary School. I spent 2 years at Foothill Intermediate School. Now it's called a Middle School instead of Intermediate School, and it's a 3-year school now. Favorite class was metal shop. Went to Ygnacio Valley High School for one very crowded year, until they built Northgate High School. Spent 3 years at Northgate, and was in the 2nd graduating class from NGHS.

Education: Graduated from Northgate High School (NGHS) in 1977. Received two BS degrees: Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science & Engineering from UCDavis in 1983. Received an MS in Engineering Management from NTU in 1991.

Family: Married Janet Balme and we live in San Ramon, California. Son, Andrew. Daughter, Claire.

Koupal Story: "Koupal" is Czech for "to take a bath". Cool story; probably exaggerated, sounds suspiciously like the children's story Puss In Boots. Bohemia, a long time ago, my peasant relatives were walking along a dike (a road with water on each side). Along came the king's carriage from the opposite direction. (There were probably hundreds of kings back then, but "the king" sounds more important than "one of hundreds of minor magistrates of micro-kingdoms.") Well, the peasants, being ordinary folk, couldn't be on the same road as the king, and they couldn't step aside to bow, so they jumped into the water. The king rode up and asked the peasants "Hey, what the heck are all you folks doing in the water?" "We're taking a bath, your royal highness" was the reply. The king probably said something like "Bathers, huh? Well, so be it!" The peasants rejoiced. After all, the king himself had given them the name of "those who take a bath", or "Koupal" in old Czech.

Hey, it could have been worse name or story.

Genealogy: By popular request, there are a couple of Koupals here.

Garden: Apple tree ('Ein Shemer' semi-dwarf) has a fine crop this year. It's an early, tart apple that makes good applesauce. The grapes (Vitis vinifera 'Flame' and 'Black Monukka', both red seedless European table grapes) have completely covered the arbor already.

Books: Books have moved to a separate page.

Various Links: Some cool, some useful, all interesting, to me at least, and maybe to you too.

EXPERIENCE ... poorly uploaded JPEGS!
SEE ... "HTML For Dummies" put to good use!
MARVEL ... at the crude animation and AM-quality sound files!

My dream car, Marcos TS500.
If I can't have that, this is what I want for my 50th birthday, 2009 Dodge Challenger
I want to install solar shingles like this.
The art of microscopic brewing
Here's some half-baked ideas.
This site is the reason the internet was invented.
Bands I used to follow in college. Dig this! Groove this! Check out this! And, of course, Robyn.
More art & literature: always enjoyed Edgar Rice Burroughs' book series "John Carter of Mars" (a pulp western set on another planet), especially the beautiful Dejah Thoris. Cover illustrations by Frank Frazetta.
What do you mean, "Flash Gordon's alive?"
Supermarionettes Are Go!
Warning, Will Robinson.
Real rockets.
We like to go to the Reno Air Races.
Where's George? Do you know where that dollar bill has been?
What time is it in 10,000 years?
Cool backgrounds.
Want to know what's what? Find it on Wikipedia.
What's shakin'?
How's the air up there?
How's the commute?
What does your phone number spell? What switch serves your NPA-NXX?
What will you discover ?
Favorite weekend excursion to Apple Hill.
Here's some nice places to travel.

Thanks to ...


Main Email: koupal@earthlink.net