My father, George Ruff, teaches Physics at Bates College, in Lewiston.
On my father's sabbatical breaks, every seven years, I lived in fun places. I spent a year in Tucson, AZ , when my dad was at the Univeristy of Arizona. During a hike on Mt. Lemmon they thought we were lost and sent out the helicopters to look for us. I miss the desert. I spent a year in the small town of Merzhausen near Freiburg, Germany , when my dad was at the Albert Ludwigs University. I spent the entire year traveling around with my unlimited public transit pass, learning german and hanging out with my family. We also visited all the neighboring countries since it is as easy as driving to the next state in the U.S.
I studied Physics at Swarthmore College. Swarthmore is an insanely great place to go to college. My research advisor, Frank Moscatelli, was excellent, and the local computer czar, John Boccio, gave me lots of fun computer graphics equipment to play and learn with. I met many interesting, friendly people at Swarthmore (including my ex-wife, Jennifer Cumming Ruff!). Bill Liang was my college roommate for three years. Scott Schwartz and Adam Finkelstein are fellow escapees from Physics.
I spent a few dark years with Siegman at Stanford University studying even more Applied Physics. At least I worked with some nice people like Geoff Fanning.
