No, I am not referring to the Jewish holy text \u2013 that\u2019s a different spelling.<\/p>\n
The character in my logo is the Kanji character tora and it means tiger.<\/p>\n
I have always loved cats. At some point, maybe in high school, I identified my affinity for tigers. There was no great \u201cEureka!\u201d moment or life-changing event, I just knew that I had a thing for tigers. Years later, my mom described it best when she asked me, \u201cIt\u2019s primal, isn\u2019t it?\u201d Yep. It lives in that part of my brain that is all emotion and no words. That part that manages life\u2019s basic needs: food, shelter, and running faster than something else the predator is chasing. And, for me, my thing for tigers.<\/p>\n
Oddly enough, my thing for words also lives in that part of my brain that is all emotion and no words. I am passionate about clear communication.<\/p>\n
Clear communication is not always grammatically correct. It is more about style, word choice. and putting things in context for the audience. Content for a group of engineers with the same disciplinary background will be dramatically different from that for a classroom of 5th<\/sup> graders \u2013 even when the subject is the same.<\/p>\n Speaking of engineers, I spent over 10 years translating them and creating user-friendly documentation for some pretty obscure software applications.<\/p>\n Some people think that writing technical documentation is different than writing anything else \u2013 and maybe, for some writers, it is. But that is not the case for me. I am about clear communication; that means that if I can understand a topic, I can write about it. And my background is such that I can understand a great many topics.<\/p>\n I grew up in what I call, \u201cThe Land of the Leftover Hippies,\u201d also known as the Rockridge neighborhood in Oakland. Now, Rockridge is more yuppie than hippie, but in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s it was pretty weird. Being in the shadow of the Berkeley campus can do that to a place. Although my parents are a little too old to of been hippies, I had lots of exposure and balance. So, when it comes to what some call \u201cwoo woo,\u201d shy of a blood sacrifice \u2013 I have got no problems.<\/p>\n I also have an engineering degree from Berkeley. I did not work as an engineer long enough to become a very good one, but I was always able to communicate with them, and for them.<\/p>\n By Bay Area standards, I am fairly middle-of-the-road. But I\u2019ve been on both ends of the logic\/spiritual scale and find I work well with most anyone anywhere else on that scale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" No, I am not referring to the Jewish holy text \u2013 that\u2019s a different spelling. The character in my logo is the Kanji character tora and it means tiger. I have always loved cats. At some point, maybe in high school, I identified my affinity for tigers. There was no great \u201cEureka!\u201d moment or life-changing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-17","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nAbout Lorrie<\/h2>\n