Benjamin E. Chi  (bechi@bechi.org)
---------------
http://www.albany.edu/faculty/bec/
 
Personal:
 
Born: Tientsin, China
 
Education:
 
B.S. Antioch College; Ph.D. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute;
Postdoctoral Fellow, Western Reserve University.  (All in physics --
field of specialization:  low-energy nuclear theory.)
 
Occupation:
 
Fully unemployed (finally!)
 
Musical Interests:
 
My interest in music started as a child at the piano which I studied
into my college years.  I also played contrabass in the Carleton College
orchestra while I was in high school.  (Think back on it, they must have
been pretty hard up.)  I was introduced to pipe organs (both the music
and the technology) by a favorite uncle, Bill Exner, who died early 1993
in Seattle where he had retired.
 
While at Antioch (which has a work-study program) I was employed for a
semester at Neill & Johnson, an organ builder located in Upper Montclair
NJ.  I also studied organ briefly while in college.  A carpentry
accident some years ago enforced a renewed interest in playing the
'cello, my right hand having been rendered unsuitable for keyboard music
but still adequate for holding a bow.

More recently I've begun study of the carillon (which requires no
fingers whatever), playing on the instrument at Albany City Hall, a 49-
bell Taylor, renovated in 1989. There are signs that I may yet become a
competent carilloneur. 
 
As far as PIPORG-L is concerned, I'm a (mostly silent) observer except
while wearing my list-owner's hat, during which I wish I could be more
silent.  My interests are both musical and technical.
 
As for favorite composers, Bach and Brahms are the clear winners, though
my tastes are pretty broad (fading away, however, the later one gets
into the 20th century).  I think the big French romantic organ works are
pretty nifty.
 
Computing Interests:
 
I started computing on an IBM 650 whose memory consisted of 2000 words
of rotating drum, and whose mass storage was punched cards.  After many
years with a RISC workstation, some heavy IBM iron, and an NT
workstation (depending on what I was doing), I'm back to a PC like
just about everybody else.
 
During the past dozen years I've been engaged in (among other things)
implementing "next-generation networks," namely those an order of
magnitude faster than those in use by the general public.