Alan Jacobs Phoenix is home; no doubt about it. Even though I look forward stretching tomato season from early June to mid-August, my favorite summer vacations involve being cold enough to shiver: camping in a hailstorm at 9000' in the California Sierras or in a fog on the Oregon coast. I started teaching high school in 1969, first in New York City, then in northern Norway and later in Phoenix. In 1980 I exchanged the high school classroom for an academic computer consulting office in the Maricopa Community College District. But teaching lured me back and I've been teaching mathematics at Scottsdale Community College since 1984. I really like to teach! In the 90's I was mathematics department chair at SCC and later Project Director for the Maricopa Mathematics Consortium: out of which grew the Maricopa Mathematics Modules. About a year ago I started to learn to play the banjo. (And that's a long way from actually playing it.) The experience has been both fun and humbling. I've learned once again that practice really does make a difference.