Personal Page

To complain about the content of this personal page (and I know some will), contact Dr. Alan Doolittle, alan.doolittle@ece.gatech.edu so he can promptly ignore your complaints.

Interests:

My interests lie mainly in my wife Lisa, my children, Cayla, Derek, Dakota, Dawson, Dylan and Seth. Most of my spare time is taken up with family or church. Between work (which I love and count as a hobby as much as a career), and chasing a toddler, I have little free time for my own passions. In what little personal time I do have, I am slowly modifying an older corvette. My 1980 corvette is being retrofitted with 2000 corvette mechanics (engine, transmission, and suspension). I also like playing guitar, although that is a distant 5th to family, horses, sports and my car.

My two horses, Sammie and Blondie, are no longer with me but I still ride as often as I can, especially in National parks or other scenic locations. We have two dogs, Ginger and Hersey. We also have cats but unlike dogs, no one cares what their names are.

I grew up south of Atlanta in Riverdale GA, graduated high school in 1984. In high school/junior high I played basketball (more accurately, I was so bad I should say I was on the basketball team but rarely “played”). Having been born in 1966, I grew up with a unique experience, seeing the south change in dramatic fashion in politics, demographics and culture. Seeing the wrongs of the old south and hope of the new south first hand gives me a unique perspective on current events.

I enjoy unconstrained racing (drag racing, formula one and land speed) but despise all forms of racing that puts wimpy limits on the ability of man to invent new ways of going faster (i.e. NASCAR).

I also love politics! I often say I am the only moderate I know. Many people claim to be moderate but when polled, they admit to have only voted for democrats or republicans. Doing so, you might as well vote in an emperor since you will only get one viewpoint. I like political antagonists that stir up the discussion and cause controversy for the mainstream politicians. My political hero is Zell Miller (deceased democratic Ga governor and senator). Not only was he visionary, providing a sustainable method wherein all qualified Ga students can go to college for free, but he was truly a moderate hated by extremists in both political parties. Who else, but a moderate, would be a keynote speaker at both the democratic and later republican national conventions.

A few personal pictures are shown below.

The following links demonstrate the operation and the construction of my son Derek’s 2010 science fair project—a trebuchet capable of launching a 12 lb bowling ball 121 feet with a surprising amount of power. He did 95+% of the work himself with me only supplying supervision (see the huge 1 hour construction video for proof). For scale reference, Derek is 5’ 8” tall.