UCLA Social Sciences Class Websites Cartoon courtesy of Mino, Fortaleza, Ceará, Brasil

Lunch at Michael's - Feb. 2010 Snow Tubing - Jan. 2010 Naomi's Birthday - Jan. 2010 Lynn in L.A. - Jan. 2010 Caroline's Wedding - Jan. 2010 New Year's Eve - 2009 Christmas 2009 Shayna's - Nov. 2009 Thanksgiving - Nov. 2009 Roy's Cooking Class - Nov. 2009 Mike's Birthday - Nov. 2009 Halloween - Oct. 2009 Monument Valley - Oct. 2009 The Suite Life - Oct. 2009 Lynn & Stuart - Sept. 2009 Grandma's 80th - Oct. 2009 Bora Bora - Sept. 2009 Slip-sliding away! - August 2009 Joan and Taiko - August 2009 23rd Anniversary - July 2009 Bastille Day - July 2009 4th of July - 2009 Happy Hour at Il Moro - July 2009 Nick's 19th Birthday - June 2009 Father's Day - 2009 New York and Rockport - May 2009 Easter - April 2009 Getty Japanese Festival - March 2009 St. Patrick's Day - March 2009 Anika & Stuart - March 2009 La Cucina Italiana - March 2009 Riley's 21st Birthday - March 2009 Daniel Plays Basketball - March 2009 Lawry's - Feb. 2009 Valentine's Day - Feb. 2009 L.A. Lights - Feb. 2009 Shiny Party - Feb. 2009 Phil - Feb. 2009 L.A. Prime - Jan. 2009 Naomi and Larry's Birthday - Jan. 2009 Self Portraits and Mike - Jan. 2009 New Year's Day 2009 Christmas 2008 Holiday Party - Dec. 2008 Thanksgiving 2008 Mike's Birthday - Nov. 2008 Halloween - 2008 Grandma's Birthday - Oct. 2008 Bill Anthes Birthday - Sept. 2008 Nick Goes to College - Aug. 2008 At Grandma's - July 2008 22nd Anniversary - July 2008 Nick's Graduation - June 2008 France Part I - June 2008 France Part II - June 2008 Nick & Andrea & Riley & Will - May 2008 Prom - May 2008 Riley's Maiko Makeover - March 2008 Kyoto - March 2008 Riley's 20th Birthday - March 2008 Jenny Performs! - March 2008 Naomi's Birthday - Jan. 2008 New Year's Eve - 2007 Christmas 2007 Thanksgiving 2007 in Cancun Halloween - 2007 London - Oct. 2007 Labor Day - Sept. 2007 Stinson Beach - August 2007 21st Anniversary - July 2007 Fish in a Bottle - July 2007 4th of July - 2007 Company Picnic - June 2007 Nick's 17th Birthday - June 2007 Volleyball - May 2007 Mother's Day - May 2007 Caltech Chamber Music - May 2007 Tyler's Marimba Solo - April 29, 2007 Easter - April 2007 Red Line Tour - March 2007 Riley's 19th Birthday - March 2007 Naomi and Larry's Birthdays - Jan. 2007 Christmas 2006 Thanksgiving 2006 in Ireland Italy - August 2006 20th Anniversary - July 2006 4th of July - 2006 Nick's 16th Birthday - June 2006 Riley's Graduation - June 2006 New Orleans - June 2006 John's Visit - May 2006 Mother's Day - May 2006 Prom - May 2006 Boston with Lynn - April 2006 Riley's 18th Birthday - March 2006 Riley Plays Disney Hall - February 2006 Boston & New York - January 2006 January Celebrations - 2006 New Year's Eve 2005 Christmas 2005 Thanksgiving - 2005 Halloween - 2005 Las Vegas and Lynn - Aug. 2005 SSC Picnic - Aug. 2005 College Shopping - Aug. 2005 Jimmy & Kimmy's Wedding - Aug. 2005 19th Anniversary - July 2005 Taiko and Joan - July 2005 Los Angeles Zoo - June 2005 Nick's 15th Birthday - June 2005 Memorial Day - May 2005 Miscellaneous May Photos 2005 Puerto Morelos - March 2005 Valentine's Day - 2005 Mandalay Beach - January 2005 Margaritas and Miyazakis - January 2005 Christmas 2004 Thanksgiving - 2004 Halloween - 2004 Grandma's Birthday - Oct. 2004 L.A. Philharmonic - Oct. 2004 Monterey - August 2004 An august August - 2004 4th of July - 2004 Nick's 14th Birthday - June 2004 Nick in Alaska - June 2004 Riley in Prague - April 2004 Cruising with Grandma - April 2004 Hawaii - April 2004 Miscellaneous March Photos 2004 Afternoon at Las Brisas - February 2004 Cancun - January 2004 Thanksgiving in Whistler - 2003 Phoenix - October 2003 Oregon - August 2003 Kid City, Exposition Park, July 19, 2003 Joyce's Retirement Party - July 13, 2003 4th of July - 2003 Father's Day - 2003 Mother's Day - 2003 Spring Break - 2003 Riley's New Room - March 2003 Valentine's Day - 2003 Utah - December 2002 Christmas 2002 Thanksgiving in Banff - 2002 Halloween 2002 Morro Bay with Nick's Science Magnet - October 2002 Riley & Grandma in Europe - August 2002 Mendocino Coast - August 2002 Nick's 12th Birthday - June 2002 Mother's Day on Coronado Bay Joshua Tree - April 2002 Riley's 14th Birthday - March 2002 Valentine's Day - 2002 Las Vegas 2002 Christmas 2001 Thanksgiving in Santa Fe - 2001 Halloween 2001 Baltimore & D.C. - Summer 2001 4th of July - 2001 France - April 2001 St. Patrick's Day 2001 Valentine's Day - 2001 Big Bear Weekend - Feb. 2001 Kansas City - Jan. 2001 Christmas 2000 Thanksgiving in Morro Bay - 2000 La Jolla - November 2000 Halloween 2000 Havasupai - April 2000 China - March 2000 Thanksgiving in the Bahamas - 1999 Alaska - August 1999 Spain/France - Dec. 1998 More Pictures

Mike Franks: Quick Story of My Life

My name is Mike Franks. I was born in 1954 in Kansas City, Missouri as one of five kids (photo of two of us), but was raised in Michigan, New Jersey and then California as my dad worked for Ford Motor Company and they moved us around a lot. I do computer support work at Social Sciences Computing, UCLA. I am married to Naomi with two kids (Riley and Nicholas) and as Naomi keeps reminding me, am solidly middle-class. In my job, I get to play with computers and talk to people all day long. When I do too much talking I often stay up late to get the computer work done.

In my mid-twenties I saved money for five years to go travelling around the world, studying Spanish, French and Mandarin at night school in preparation. I didn't like the around-the-world airplane fares as they mostly stuck to the Northern Hemisphere, so I started by land in Tijuana, took a bus to Mexicali, and train to Guadalajara with a French traveller that a Mexican policeman introduced me to on my first day. Translating Spanish to French (poorly) for the first three weeks helped considerably in getting into the spirit of the trip.

Instead of spending two years going around the world, I spent three years in Latin America and it took me 14 years to get to China.
Thinking I would spend two months in Brasil, I fell in love with it and spent two years there instead.
I might still be there yet, teaching English and rock-climbing in Rio de Janeiro, if I hadn't met Naomi on the beach in Copacabana and followed her back to New York. That was sixteen years ago (May 1986) and Portuguese turns out to be my best second language despite the fact that I learned it all on the street.

Writing

I always thought that seeing yourself as a writer (whether you write or not) has the very significant advantage of allowing you to remain philosophical about everything that happens in your life. Hilarious or horrific it can all be seen as preparation for being a writer. Self-delusional this may be, but as Tom Robbins once wrote "It all depends on how you look at it." (Actually, I'll have to look that quote up, but it was something like that.)

I wrote articles while travelling, starting with a cartoon contest in Brasil, where I ended up interviewing 25 Brasilian cartoonists. Mino, one of the artists I interviewed, gave me the cartoon that you see at the top of this page. None of my articles sold, though my sister Kate sent them out to plenty of magazines. One, on a Brasilian street comedian, did manage to get published in the English language paper for foreigners in Rio de Janeiro after I did some volunteer copy-editing there. If nothing else, the delusion of being a writer added a lot to my trip. Here's one of the longer articles I wrote. This one is about some of the kids I met in a hospital in Rio de Janeiro. I called it "I Get Paid, It Just Isn't In Money" and the file is almost 70K.

A few years after I began working at UCLA, Barry Gerber (my boss at that time) started writing first for PC Week and then Network Computing Magazine. One day when I was recounting a networking adventure (Novell NetWare), he said I should write it up as an article. That led to a series of articles for Network Computing which then ended up with the chance to write a book. Internet Publishing Handbook, For World-Wide Web, Gopher, and WAIS. While it wasn't the book on my travels that I'd always imagined (if I ever finish my trip around the world) it was on a subject I'm very enthusiastic about. It's available in better bookstores everywhere and for free on the Internet at the link you just passed. With any luck, I'll keep on writing. I figure it's the poor man's way to travel. It lets me go exploring while still putting the kids to bed every night.

Recommendations

• MuralArt.com is a very good site by Robin Dunitz, the author of some excellent books on murals.
• SPARC Murals

Projects

• Wiki Site
• Science Magnet Website for my kids' school.
• ClassWeb Project We run roughly 330 class websites per quarter using our home-grown, template and database driven (MySQL & PHP), soon to be open-source ClassWeb software. Working with faculty to incorporate their suggestions is the best part.
• Notes from Computing in the Social Sciences '96 Conference
• Internet Techniques in the Social Sciences was the basis for a tutorial and paper I presented at CSS'96 in Minneapolis, May 13, 1996.
• Timeline Example - This is a model for an experiment in doing timelines on the Web.
- I ran out of time for this several years ago but still hope to get back to it. It needs better editing. The basic idea is that everything is stored in hidden variables and you just save the HTML it gives you once you're done adding entries. Then, add graphics, colors, etc. in an HTML editor. Source Code

visits since April 16, 1996.

Last updated 31 October 2004 by franks@ssc.ucla.edu