Made in Wisconsin: Gwen Jorgensen, 2016 Gold Medalist in the Triathlon

Today, August 20, 2016, Wisconsin native Gwen Jorgensen won the Gold Medal for the Triathlon at the Rio Olympics.

She was born on April 25, 1986 (she shares a birthday with one of my brothers!) in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

She attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, earning bachelors and masters degrees. 

Congratulations, Gwen Jorgensen!

Made in Wisconsin: The 2014-2015 Wisconsin Badgers Men's Basketball Team

As I write this, Wisconsinites await something that has not happened since 1941--the Badger Men's Basketball team plays tonight in the National Championship Game.

I'm proud to have been born and raised in Madison, WI. I'm proud to be a three degree alumnus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

And, win or lose, I'm proud of what this basketball team accomplished this season.

But I'm precisely proud of them because, more than most teams that compete at that level, a significant portion of this basketball team are actually from Wisconsin!

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm well aware that without the contribution of Frank Kaminsky (from Lisle, IL), we simply wouldn't be there tonight!

But note the following comparison of the teams. 

Of the sixteen players on the UW's roster this year, seven of them are actually from Wisconsin! Another five, including Kaminsky, are from states that border on Wisconsin.

Compare those facts to the composition of the Duke team we will face tonight. Of the eleven players on Duke's roster this year, only one is from North Carolina. And not a single other player is even from a state that borders North Carolina.

Bo Ryan may not have been born in Wisconsin, but he has lived and worked in Wisconsin since 1976, so we're proud to claim him too!

I'll add the final point that athletes at the University of Wisconsin have a graduation rate well beyond most schools that play at this level.

 Good luck tonight, gentlemen. Win or lose, you have made us proud of our State and Our School.

Wind Chill: It's Not Just A "Feeling"

 News Report: It's 10 Degrees, but with Wind Chill it Feels Like 15 Below...

I grew up in Madison, Wisconsin. So, I know the cold. My twin and I were paperboys for many years and there were mornings every Winter when our father insisted, God bless his departed soul, on driving us through the route because the temperatures, with wind chill, were dangerously cold.

Here's what many people outside the Great North do not understand. Wind Chill is for real.

The media, as I hear it here in New Jersey, doesn't seem to understand it completely. 

Here's an example. It's currently 10 degrees Fahrenheit where I live. We are predicted tonight to receive gusts up to 36 mph. And we are under a "Wind Chill Advisory" informing us here that the Wind Chill could be 15 degrees below zero.

And yet consistently I keep hearing this reported in local media as the following. "It's 10 degrees. But with Wind Chill it will feel like 15 below."

No. It won't feel like 15 below. It is 15 below.

Look, I'm a Latin teacher, not a Physics teacher. But I understand the science underlying this issue. Cold air takes heat off an object. Cold air in motion takes even more heat off an object. This is because the effect of the motion is that even more cold air touched that object. And so even more cold air does its damage.

But when you report that it will "feel like it's 15 below," you could mislead people into thinking that Wind Chill is just something psychological.  "Hey! I know it feels like it's 15 below, but it's really only 10 above, so I'm fine out here!"

No, you're not.

And I'm writing this at a time when my family and friends back in Wisconsin are in a seriously dangerous situation. And I've seen that, while Chicago wisely cancelled school today because of the cold, other districts did not, putting children who had to wait for a bus at peril.

The point is, with no wind, I could hold my ungloved hand outside in 10 degrees above pretty much indefinitely and not get frostbite. But if I did that tonight, with Wind Chill of 15 below, it will not just feel like 15 below. I will get frostbite.

As a final note, as I said, I grew up in Wisconsin. I never ever complain about the heat. And in the Summer of 2004, while in Iraq, I was in 120 degree heat. 

The reason I don't complain about the heat is that I want to reserve the right to complain about the cold. I mean, if you complain about both, well, then you're just a complainer! 

So, I don't complain about the heat. And that gives me the right to say, "Damn! I hate this cold!"

Made in Wisconsin: Shrinky Dinks

Such fun memories I had as a child, making Shrinky Dinks! Little did I know then that, mirabile dictu, they were invented and produced in my home state of Wisconsin! Here's the story.

The year was 1973. In Brookfield, Wisconsin, Betty Morris and Kate Bloomberg invented Shrinky Dinks initially as a project for their sons to do with their Cub Scout troop. But they realized that this fun had much bigger potential. 

Now, it needs to be said, the name they chose for this product is, well, certainly evocative.  But the success of their business is proof enough that they chose well.

If you've never made Shrinky Dinks (or even heard of them), the idea is that you color and cut forms made of polystyrene plastic, then bake them. They "shrink" dramatically, while keeping their shape and the added color. It was fun, cheap entertainment to us back before kids had video games. 

Here's what it looks like:

They are still produced by K & B (Kate and Betty) Innovations, Inc. in North Lake, Wisconsin. 

Yet another classic example of Wisconsin industry and ingenuity!

Keith Massey was born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin. He has his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Biblical Hebrew, with a minor in Arabic. After 9/11, he served as an Arabic linguist at the NSA. He is currently a Latin teacher at a public high school in New Jersey.

Keith is the author of Intermediate Arabic for Dummies. His fiction novels follow the adventures of Andrew Valquist, roughly patterned after himself--a man born and raised in Wisconsin who gets pulled into the world of international intrigue. 



Keith's novels are A Place of Brightness, Amor Vincit Omnia: An Andrew Valquist Adventure, Next Stop: Spanish, and In Saecula Saeculorum.

Made in Wisconsin: Carmex

This is one of those "obvious in retrospect" revelations. Necessity is the mother of invention, and so where else but the frigid north was someone going to invent the leading product for chapped lips?

Alfred G. Woelbing was born in Wisconsin on May 1, 1901 (he would live to be a hundred, dying on May 18, 2001).

He invented his Carmex formula and made the product out of the basement of his home in Waukesha, Wisconsin. After his product began to take off, he moved his operation to a warehouse in nearby Wauwatosa. Today, Carma Labs is located in Franklin, Wisconsin and the company is run by the late Woelbing's grandsons, Paul and Eric Woelbing, who remain committed to keeping the operation in Wisconsin indefinitely.

Bonus! According to his obituary, Alfred Woelbing, in addition to inventing Carmex and living to a hundred, worked on the Manhattan Project! This guys rules! A true Wisconsinite!
 

Keith Massey was born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin. He has his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Biblical Hebrew, with a minor in Arabic. After 9/11, he served as an Arabic linguist at the NSA. He is currently a Latin teacher at a public high school in New Jersey.

Keith is the author of Intermediate Arabic for Dummies. His fiction novels follow the adventures of Andrew Valquist, roughly patterned after himself--a man born and raised in Wisconsin who gets pulled into the world of international intrigue. 



Keith's novels are A Place of Brightness, Amor Vincit Omnia: An Andrew Valquist Adventure, Next Stop: Spanish, and In Saecula Saeculorum.

Made in Wisconsin: the Largest Producer-Only Farmers' Market in the USA

"The Square."

After my niece's wedding last Friday, we had the opportunity to indulge ourselves in a classic Madison attraction, the Dane County Farmers' Market, on the Square.

"The Square," in case you're not from Wisconsin, refers to the large block square on which our State Capitol sits. And every Saturday of the Summer and Harvest Season, there is a Farmers' Market around the entire circuit of that block.

Typical Scene at the Farmers' Market.

The Dane County Farmers' Market is the largest "Producers-Only" Farmers' Market in the USA. In other words, every vendor there must be directly connected to the production of what they are selling. 

Virtually everything there is organic, either certified as such de iure or, though non-certified, de facto (official certification is expensive and cost-prohibitive for many smaller farmers).

Here's where we bought grass-fed beef.

Now, whether or not one could then call the official "Largest Producer-Only Farmers' Market" therefore to be "The Best" will be a matter of opinion. I'm not sure by what criteria one can really be better than ours. Maybe there's one in California that's bigger, but it's full of produce shipped from around the world? Maybe there's one in Iowa that's smaller but it's only certified organic?

And all that said, it's hard to imagine that some other country is hosting a larger "Producer-Only Farmers' Market." So it's probably the biggest and the big of its kind in the entire world.

My twin, his wife, and my wife.

Anyway, it's quite an experience. The Capitol Building is itself simply gorgeous and provides a majestic backdrop (as well as free restrooms) to the event.

I got a laugh from the vendor to the left. People from Wisconsin call people from Illinois "FIBs" (The "I" stands for Illinois. As there is no love between the two states, you can figure it out from there.). All of the celebrities depicted there are from the Chicago area. It's a tongue-in-cheek joke that their business name really stands for "Fine Italian Beef."

Here, my twin has cooked the zucchini and grass-fed beef we purchased at the Farmers' Market to perfection. A wonderful end to a wonderful day. And so great to be back, for however short a time, in Wisconsin.

Made in Wisconsin: Orson Welles

The film Citizen Cane (1941) is consistently rated the greatest motion picture of all time. If you haven't seen it, you simply must. It really is all that good.

The film's producer, director, co-writer, and lead actor was Orson Welles. And, it turns out, Orson Welles was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin in 1915.

His family left Wisconsin for Chicago when he was just four years old, but returned briefly such that Orson Welles attended fourth grade in my hometown of Madison.

After that, they returned to Illinois, and Welles would evolve

into the world-renown film maker we know today.

I would like to think that, as he said the words, "Rosebud," a bit of his inspiration was the beauty and innocence of the original state of his nurture, Wisconsin.

Keith Massey was born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin. He has his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Biblical Hebrew, with a minor in Arabic. After 9/11, he served as an Arabic linguist at the NSA. He is currently a Latin teacher at a public high school in New Jersey.

Keith is the author of Intermediate Arabic for Dummies. His fiction novels follow the adventures of Andrew Valquist, roughly patterned after himself--a man born and raised in Wisconsin who gets pulled into the world of international intrigue. 



Keith's novels are A Place of Brightness, Amor Vincit Omnia: An Andrew Valquist Adventure, Next Stop: Spanish, and In Saecula Saeculorum.

Made in Wisconsin: the World's Best Cheese

This post was, of course, inevitable. There's obviously one about beer coming some time in the future, as well.

But I know you're interested in more than just the simple assertion of a loyal Wisconsinite who hails from Dairy Farming stock. 

In this post, I'll explain historically how Wisconsin emerged as the undisputed leader of the dairy industry in the United States.


Still America's Dairyland

Wisconsin became the nation's largest producer of dairy, including milk, in 1915. It would remain the largest milk producer outright until the 1990's. In 1993, California surpassed Wisconsin in overall milk production. In 1998, California passed Wisconsin for the largest number of dairy cows.

But keep in mind that Wisconsin has just 1.8% of the total US population.  California has 12%. So Wisconsin is obviously producing enormously more milk per capita than California. And Wisconsin still is outright producing more cheese than any other state. Therefore Wisconsin still has every right to continue calling itself "America's Dairyland."


How Did We Get There?

The explanation of how Wisconsin emerged in 1915 as the largest milk producer, with cheese production in tow, is a combination of historical accidents and good planning.

When Wisconsin became a state in 1849, lead mining was one of the leading industries. Shortly after statehood, Wisconsin invested in an extensive rail network, which would allow it to more efficiently move any of its products to other parts of the country.

Encouraged by cheap (or even free) land, many people already experienced in dairy farming from areas like New York State began moving to Wisconsin. 

The University of Wisconsin-Madison also had a significant impact in helping Wisconsin achieve high dairy production. The relationship between the University and the governmental and economic interests is quite unique to Wisconsin. So much so, that it is termed the "Wisconsin Idea." The UW-Madison actively encouraged dairy farming in its agriculture school and the percentage of farmers raising cows for milk steadily increased.

People such as my ancestors, Norwegian on my Mom's side and Swiss German on my Dad's, brought their Old World expertise in cheese making. 

Granted, people from Switzerland who knew how to make cheese also settled in Minnesota. But it was the combination of the steadily rising production of milk due to the factors I described above, as well as the introduction of talented cheese makers from abroad that resulted in Wisconsin beginning to dominate the cheese market as well.

Now, at this point Wisconsin cheese making has over a hundred years of tradition and cumulative expertise. California is close on our heels for overall cheese production, just about four percentage points behind. But even if they ever do make more of the stuff, people will still gravitate toward that "Made in Wisconsin" label, because they will know the tradition and the quality.

My Cheese Recommendation
 

If you're ever in Madison, Wisconsin, I strongly urge you to go to a restaurant on the Square called The Old Fashioned. They serve classic Wisconsin food. Make sure you get an order of their deep fried cheese curds. Best I've ever had! 

Here's a picture of them from Jeanne Carpenter's blog "Cheese Underground." Click to visit her blog and learn more from a true expert and connoisseur of Wisconsin cheese! I love her motto: Have fun. Do good. Eat cheese.

Keith Massey was born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin. He has his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Biblical Hebrew, with a minor in Arabic. After 9/11, he served as an Arabic linguist at the NSA. He is currently a Latin teacher at a public high school in New Jersey.

Keith is the author of Intermediate Arabic for Dummies. His fiction novels follow the adventures of Andrew Valquist, roughly patterned after himself--a man born and raised in Wisconsin who gets pulled into the world of international intrigue. 



Keith's novels are A Place of Brightness, Amor Vincit Omnia: An Andrew Valquist Adventure, Next Stop: Spanish, and In Saecula Saeculorum.

Made in Wisconsin: Barbie

Barbie? Do you mean Barbies are made in Wisconsin?

Nope, they're probably made overseas somewhere, certainly not in Wisconsin.

Do you mean Barbie was designed or invented by someone born in Wisconsin?

Nope, the credited creator of Barbie, Ruth Handler, was born in Denver, Colorado.

Then how in the world is Barbie somehow even remotely from or connected to Wisconsin!!!!???

Lamentabile dictu, Mattel decided early in their promotion of this doll that Barbie needed a back story.

And this back story was to be presented to the public through a series of "Barbie Novels" that Random House published in the 1960's.

Here's apparently how the conversation went in the board room:

Maybe we make Barbie be from Nebraska?

Are you f*&^ing serious?

Um, maybe Barbie is from California? Say, Malibu! We can even call her "Malibu Barbie"!

You're fired. There's no way that's ever happening.

Um, um, um, how about Barbie is from Wisconsin!

Yes! Give that man a raise!


And thus, Barbie was given the following back story. Her full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts. She was born to parents George and Margaret Roberts in the fictional town of Willows, Wisconsin. Barbie, by the way, attended the fictional Willows High School in those novels.

We in Wisconsin can hardly be proud of a doll that has perpetuated an unhealthy and impossible body image to generations of girls for decades. 

But, for what it's worth, I guess Barbie's from Wisconsin...

Keith Massey was born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin. He has his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Biblical Hebrew, with a minor in Arabic. After 9/11, he served as an Arabic linguist at the NSA. He is currently a Latin teacher at a public high school in New Jersey.

Keith is the author of Intermediate Arabic for Dummies. His fiction novels follow the adventures of Andrew Valquist, roughly patterned after himself--a man born and raised in Wisconsin who gets pulled into the world of international intrigue. 



Keith's novels are A Place of Brightness, Amor Vincit Omnia: An Andrew Valquist Adventure, Next Stop: Spanish, and In Saecula Saeculorum.

Made in Wisconsin: The QWERTY Keyboard

Even as I type this post, I am indebted to the ingenuity of a fellow Wisconsinite, who, mirabile dictu, invented the QWERTY keyboard.

The QWERTY keyboard arrangement was designed to minimize jamming on a manual typewriter in which the type face actually flew up on metal bars to hit the paper. And that is exactly the type of machine I first learned to type on back in the day.

And I can tell you, it minimized jamming, it didn't make it impossible. I can remember needing to slow myself down in order to prevent jams which still inevitably happened. And I would pull the type one by one off the jam by the page, assess the damage, use white out, and go back to work.

When I later took a typing class in high school, in Madison, Wisconsin, we used IBM Selectrics, in which a magnetized ball hit the paper and jamming was now impossible. We had arrived!

But far too many people knew how to type on the QWERTY to even think of changing that up that arrangement.

And now that no one ever types anything that immediately hits type face against paper, you'd think we'd consider a new keyboard arrangement that might speed up typing.

Nope, too late. 2 million years from now, people will still be using the QWERTY keyboard.

Christopher Latham Sholes

The QWERTY keyboard was invented by Christopher Latham Sholes. While he was born in Pennsylvania in 1819, he moved to Wisconsin in 1837, where he would live and work the rest of his life.

He is called the "Father of the Typewriter" because he invented and patented the first practical and widely used typewriter. In trials with his machine, he was

Shole's Typewriter. You can see the QWERTY keyboard

encountering the problem of typeface jamming. By trial and error he arrived at the QWERTY arrangement we still use today and since that is what he patented, that is what all subsequent typewriters ended up using.

Thank you, Mr. Sholes. Your invention arguably changed the world even more than the printing press. And we're proud to claim you as a Wisconsinite.

 

Keith Massey was born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin. He has his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Biblical Hebrew, with a minor in Arabic. After 9/11, he served as an Arabic linguist at the NSA. He is currently a Latin teacher at a public high school in New Jersey.

Keith is the author of Intermediate Arabic for Dummies. His fiction novels follow the adventures of Andrew Valquist, roughly patterned after himself--a man born and raised in Wisconsin who gets pulled into the world of international intrigue. 



Keith's novels are A Place of Brightness, Amor Vincit Omnia: An Andrew Valquist Adventure, Next Stop: Spanish, and In Saecula Saeculorum.

Made in Wisconsin: Social Security

During the Great Depression, when America was struggling with a dire level of poverty, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt needed ideas. He knew where to turn. 

The Wisconsin Idea is the policy that the University of Wisconsin has a mission to best advise governmental policy makers and conduct research for the benefit of the common good.

And so, who better to ask for help than the University of Wisconsin-Madison's chief professor of Economics, Edwin E. Witte?

Edwin E. Witte was born in 1887 in Ebenezer, Wisconsin. He was valedictorian of his class from Watertown High School and then graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (from which I'm also proud to have three degrees).

He amassed a body of experience both academic and governmental before becoming a professor of Economics back at our Alma Mater.

And when Roosevelt came calling, there was no one better for the job.

Witte was the principal author of the Social Security Act of 1935, which, when passed into law, created the Social Security Administration that still today provides a critical safety net for this nation's elderly and disabled. For this reason, he is called the "Father of Social Security."

When he finally retired in 1957, he himself, mirabile dictu, received Social Security! He died three years later, in 1960 (which is exactly why you need to start drawing the day you are able).

Keith Massey was born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin. He has his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Biblical Hebrew, with a minor in Arabic. After 9/11, he served as an Arabic linguist at the NSA. He is currently a Latin teacher at a public high school in New Jersey.

Keith is the author of Intermediate Arabic for Dummies. His fiction novels follow the adventures of Andrew Valquist, roughly patterned after himself--a man born and raised in Wisconsin who gets pulled into the world of international intrigue. 



Keith's novels are A Place of Brightness, Amor Vincit Omnia: An Andrew Valquist Adventure, Next Stop: Spanish, and In Saecula Saeculorum.

Made in Wisconsin: Aldrich Ames

So many wonderful people hail from Wisconsin. But, in the interest of full disclosure, like all places, we've got our bad apples too. 

And this includes one of the worst traitors in US espionage history, Aldrich Ames.

Yes, lamentabile dictu, Aldrich Ames was born in 1941 in River Falls, Wisconsin. The family relocated to Virginia in 1952 when Ames' father went to work for the CIA. As a result of his father's connections, Ames got low level employment there while still in high school and began to work his way up the ranks.

Now, I worked for four years myself at the National Security Agency as a Top Secret cleared Arabic linguist. And the security background checks and ongoing monitoring to which I was subject were virtually created by the lessons learned of the Aldrich Ames case.

Here was a man who had an ongoing serious alcohol problem while in service, which was noted in numerous performance reviews and yet he kept right on working. He had extra-marital affairs with foreign nationals, a nasty divorce, and ends up deep in debt. When he began selling the Soviets the names of CIA assets, he suddenly had enough money to buy things his CIA salary could never have afforded. And by the time the Agency finally figured out that he was the mole responsible for the deaths of dozens of CIA assets, it was all obvious only in retrospect.

When asked how he was able to continually pass polygraph tests, he reported, "There's no special magic. Confidence is what does it. Confidence and a friendly relationship with the examiner. Rapport, where you smile and you make him think that you like him."

Despite the fact that both Ames and Robert Hanssen (an even more damaging traitor, and born in Chicago, thank God) passed numerous lie detector tests, the US Intelligence Community still requires their use routinely for obtaining and retaining Top Secret clearances. 

The Intelligence Community does, however, maintain a constant watch on the credit status of people under Top Secret clearance, and deep debt or sudden influxes of money are red flags of potential issues. If they had skipped the polygraphs and been checking on those things routinely back in the 80's and 90's, they would have caught both Ames and Hanseen more quickly. 

At any rate, a Wisconsinite who failed upward at the CIA as he betrayed his country.

Keith Massey was born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin. He has his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Biblical Hebrew, with a minor in Arabic. After 9/11, he served as an Arabic linguist at the NSA. He is currently a Latin teacher at a public high school in New Jersey.

Keith is the author of Intermediate Arabic for Dummies. His fiction novels follow the adventures of Andrew Valquist, roughly patterned after himself--a man born and raised in Wisconsin who gets pulled into the world of international intrigue. 



Keith's novels are A Place of Brightness, Amor Vincit Omnia: An Andrew Valquist Adventure, Next Stop: Spanish, and In Saecula Saeculorum.

Made in Wisconsin: Liberace

You're telling me that Liberace, arguably the greatest American pianist of all time...is from Wisconsin?

He certainly is! He was born in West Allis, Wisconsin in 1919 as Wladziu Valentino Liberace, of an Italian father and Polish mother.

He quickly emerged as a child prodigy on the piano, playing at, mirabile dictu, the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee at age eight. He worked his way up in the music business within Wisconsin, only moving on to bigger venues on the East Coast in the 1940's. 

And the rest is history. I can remember watching him

perform on television while young and being amazed at the dazzling talent and mesmerizing showmanship the man so naturally exhibited.

Proud of you, fellow Wisconsinite!

Keith Massey was born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin. He has his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Biblical Hebrew, with a minor in Arabic. After 9/11, he served as an Arabic linguist at the NSA. He is currently a Latin teacher at a public high school in New Jersey.

Keith is the author of Intermediate Arabic for Dummies. His fiction novels follow the adventures of Andrew Valquist, roughly patterned after himself--a man born and raised in Wisconsin who gets pulled into the world of international intrigue. 



Keith's novels are A Place of Brightness, Amor Vincit Omnia: An Andrew Valquist Adventure, Next Stop: Spanish, and In Saecula Saeculorum.

Made in Wisconsin: Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright Stamp

Frank Lloyd Wright? Considered the greatest American architect who ever lived?  From Wisconsin?

Indeed! Mirabile dictu, Frank Lloyd Wright was born in 1867 in Richland Center, Wisconsin. He attended my Alma Mater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

He relocated to the Chicago area, still in a building boom following the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, and eventually became the world-class architect we know today.

Wisconsin itself is full of Frank Lloyd Wright designed buildings. 

Notable among them are the following.

The Monona Terrace in Madison

Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Wauwatosa

 

Unitarian Meeting House in Shorewood Hills

Frank Lloyd Wright divided his later years between estates in Spring Green, Wisconsin and Scottsdale, Arizona, where he died in 1959. 

A true Wisconsinite, who pioneered the concept of planning a structure to be in harmony with its environment. A tribute to our great State of Wisconsin!
 

Keith Massey was born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin. He has his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Biblical Hebrew, with a minor in Arabic. After 9/11, he served as an Arabic linguist at the NSA. He is currently a Latin teacher at a public high school in New Jersey.

Keith is the author of Intermediate Arabic for Dummies. His fiction novels follow the adventures of Andrew Valquist, roughly patterned after himself--a man born and raised in Wisconsin who gets pulled into the world of international intrigue. 



Keith's novels are A Place of Brightness, Amor Vincit Omnia: An Andrew Valquist Adventure, Next Stop: Spanish, and In Saecula Saeculorum.