Richard McKenna's Home Page

Me

Wall Street Banker, Halloween 2011

When I'm not teaching, grading, programming, or gaming, I don't always know what to do with myself. I do like hanging out with friends and family, of course, I like playing the guitar and piano, and I love to travel.

Hmm, what else? Well, I was married by an Elvis impersonator, I like hiking obscure and beautiful places on the north shore of Long Island and kayaking in Northport Bay. The first album I ever bought with my own money was Billy Joel's Glass Houses and since borrowing The Clash's London Calling album from my friend back in 1985, I would guess I've listened to it more than 1000 times. My favorite libation is Blue Point's Hoptical Illusion, and I secretly wish I could start a band with David Gilmour, Jack White, and Stewart Copeland.

If you're wondering what teams I root for, which of course you should be, you should first understand that my father is from the South Bronx, and so raised me on the principle that there are two types of sports: 1) Baseball and 2) The inferior sports. I do like some of the inferior sports, particularly American football and ice hockey, but every spring I do consider flying to Florida and trying out for The Yankees, which is reasonable since my favorite player, Graig Nettles hitter of 390 majestic career home runs, played into his late 40s, and I'm not quite there yet. Maybe I'll try out next year.

Yes, I love the New York Yankees, but I also root for both the New York football Giants and the New York Jets, which some people think is heresy, but too bad, it's more fun that way. I've also recently started following our very own Stony Brook Seawolves football team, which has been great. As for other sports, as a kid I liked the New York Islanders and the Hartford Whalers, and have thought that perhaps I will scar my son for life by taking him to an Islanders game and encouraging him to support our only Long Island team. At least he'll have the Yankees to balance out the wins and losses. And I sometimes will watch and root for the New York Knickerbockers, but there are only so many hours in the day when there's programming to do.

My wife and I have enjoyed fun road trips over the years. Like the one we took to Tornado Alley, another we took to Newfoundland (Pronounced "Newfin - Land"), and yet another when we drove all the way across the country to California and back again with lots of stops along the way. Click on the images below to see photos and commentary about those fun little trips. We're planning to go to Scotland as well as Spain's Basque Country, and maybe the 5 states we haven't been to sometime in the near future. Can you guess which states they are? The answer is at the bottom of this page, way below the footer.