A short, colloquial autobiography with web links
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ME, BRIEFLY
I've dabbled in all kinds of creative endeavors: art (drawing, painting, and more), music, acting, many forms of writing, photography, graphic design, illustration and video. I am very much a student of media and what's going on around me: current events, history, journalism and publishing. My career has involved almost all of the creative areas as well as the media, and my hobbies / avocations are essentially consumed by these. I'm half Swede-Finn (Swedish, let's just say) on Dad's side, English and French on Mom's side. My predecessors came to America only three generations before me. (My mother's parents both came to the U.S. from Canada, so that's an easy one.) I was raised as a Protestant (Episcopalian -- the Anglican Church in the United States). There's three children in my immediate family including myself; I am the middle child. I was the one who disturbed the waters most in my teenage years. I also seemed to be the one that found his way into some of the trickiest situations, intentionally or not. Still, I turned out OK. The following information is a random and fairly uneventful gaggle of scribbles about me and my life, a thumbnail sketch of things with related links.
I married in May 2002, an Aussie gal named Charlene. See: Photos page, click on 'Wedding.' The wedding was the culmination of a long-distance friendship that started on the Internet many years before. Charlene first visited me in August 2001. Mrs. Osterholm and I were happy e-pals for about six years before marrying, and now we are a happy couple. We feel very lucky to have been given the chance to get together. Only six weeks after we were married, I was laid off, and things only started to get back in some sort of order in 2005. (The fact that she could not legally work in the U.S. was a bitter addition to our sudden loss of income, but we simply worked past it.) Even after the stress of months at a time with no money and no jobs, we are still happy together. Thanks to the help of our parents, we moved to South Florida, and from there a few sour turns in work led to our moving a few hours closer to Daytona Beach, to Vero Beach. We currently live in Winter Park, Florida, by Orlando and a mere hour from South Daytona. We have three kids, after a few years with only two -- our dog, Hobbes, and Daintree the turtle we've had a while. We lost our banged up and limping (when we found him) stray cat, Achilles, to severe diabetes complications in Aug. 2005. Along that line, we for a long time missed, perhaps oddly, wild but friendly ducks that we left behind when we left our place with the little pond in Pompano Beach. In 2008, our little troupe went back up to three kids, when we took in Fosters the cat, a young one who is lighting up the place every day. Smart and fun-loving, he has even gotten very considerate Hobbes to play a little rough with him now and then. Lineage Mom's parents were from Prince Edward Island, Canada. That's off the eastern side of the mainland. Mother English, father French. So I have Canadian roots, eh. Dad's parents came from a small island southeast of mainland Sweden. It's considered part of Finland, or so I've been told. Technically, we're Swede-Finn. Sweden's capital, Stockholm, is a grouping of many islands, and is considered one of the most unique capitals of the world, and it certainly is, geographically. Not been there -- yet. Dad visited there in the 1990s. So, I'm of Viking-related roots, as I look at it. I identify with the Viking lineage, for whatever reason. Not the raping and pillaging bit. Really, the way the Vikings got around, I could be 100% Scandinavian. My creative identity and this site's name, Ringhorne, is from Viking (or Norse) mythology.
Osterholm means quite different things in Finland and Sweden. In Swedish, which is what I understand to be our true roots, it means "eastern land." Now you've learned some Swedish. Part of my deeper roots are found in the name Rüs (or Roos), known in Norse and Viking history as a tribe, and that tribe is the people from whom the name Russia came. The Vikings and their predecessors were a significant influence on old Russia. If you'd never heard it before, Vikings had a lot to do with the development of Russia as an organized state, going far, far back.
Worcester, Mass., is my home town. I lived in Massachusetts (check out boston.com) until 1980, mostly in the little town of Oxford, Mass. I grew up in Daytona Beach, Fla. (from age 12 until college graduation). I graduated from Seabreeze Senior High, and with a Business Admin. degree I graduated from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (Daytona). Grew up in the Episcopal church, even serving as an acolyte (altar boy) in my youth.
In 2005, we moved from Pompano Beach to Vero Beach, when I took a contract job that proved very satisfying. I was involved in the aviation industry for the first time in my career, despite my college education (and attempts at joining airport marketing departments). We were even more close to Daytona and Mom, Dad and Don at the end of 2006, when we relocated with the same contract agency to the Orlando area. We have lived in the Winter Park area since then, a mere one-hour drive from Mom's. WHAT I'VE DONE Hobbies + Career = Life Direction Since my youth, I've been into creative endeavors. In that way, my first taste of notoriety was in third grade, when a drawing of mine was selected for the cover of a first grade orientation booklet (awarded a bunch of colored pens, pencils and drawing paper). Acting, poetry, drawing, music, television program/commercial production, writing, editing, directing, multimedia, and Internet development are all things I've done in my career and free time and aspire to do in some degree through out my life. I have been curious about a great many things since I was quite young -- and then I was in college, trying to find my adult self. I joined the college paper, and found something. Some things, really. Writing, editing, design, page layout and publishing. Seven years later I was the design chief at a multimedia company, The Warehouse Multimedia Studios. It was there that, for more than two years, I developed and produced the Gazette -- a community newspaper for Goodlettsville, Tenn. Money and energy were the leading factors in killing that labor of love and flexor of skill. I was busy at the studio, and that stuck for a while, though the paper couldn't. I helped launch a new daily newspaper for Nashville, founded by an entrepreneur who made it in the computer and insurance businesses. I ended up the issue layout planner and ad designer and copywriter, to put my duties briefly. It's called The City Paper. It has had a rather awkward existence, but as of mid-2006, a proven successful publisher took over the helm. While I still feel that I was given the shaft, I do like to look in on that little rag now and then.
It took several bad rubs for me to drop news media as a workplace, and it is not for lack of interest, or belief that it can be effective. I still believe in the media being an effective messenger for informing, influencing and entertaining. I am simply reading more, reacting to it, and not working (earning a living) directly in it. No great loss for me, I do wish for a fate that brings me to a writer's life.
Settling Down I kicked my income up a notch thanks to a move to Vero Beach, FL, in 2005, where I was a contract technical writer (and illustrator) until December 2006. In 2005, I took a job as a technical writer, my first in that role, at a company called Piper Aircraft. While I greatly enjoyed that work and the aviation-oriented surroundings, I needed to set financial goals above other things, and moved on after 15 months there. I was relieved to be out of the world of news media, tragically, as it proved to be low-paying and poor in leadership vision. And no one was interested in my views as all that went. After all, I needed to earn a living and I have always had more interest in doing a good job and being paid for it than being scaled back by expectations of being a one-horse show, which it seems so many media outlets demand (at least, for someone at my pay rate when I dumped that career path). In 2007, as the year began, we were settling into our latest new location (the third in four years), in Winter Park, Florida. I began working for a technology company, in a role that proved to be fairly fluid in its scope, being involved with technical editing and other documentation support (document layout and formatting, information gathering, document submittal, etc.) as well as having a significant part in writing, editing and designing proposals for new business. That wound itself down, and while supporting an engineering lead on a project involving drawings, parts listings and more, I found a new job in a different industry. You could say that I got back into the paper business: I work for a corrugated and packaging equipment company in south Orlando. through the contract agency TAC Worldwide (based in Dedham, MA). I work at Smurfit-Stone, in its Automated Packaging Systems division. Not a familiar name to everyone, and not as gigantic as Georgia Pacific or International Paper, Smurfit-Stone earns billions in revenue annually, mostly in the U.S. The division is a major growth segment in the company, set on an exciting path of expansion over the next four to five years.
Freelance All through my career, I have done other things outside of my day job. For instance, in 2005, I was writing articles for a magazine in the Coral Springs-Parkland area, in Florida. Back in 2002, I was writing for an online animal welfare site (now closed, but the articles are on other sites, in part). I worked as a designer and editor for several sports magazines while I was doing the Gazette and working at the Warehouse. In fact, I was independent when working at the Gazette, and while I was at the Warehouse, for most of the time. I worked at trying to get some marketing freelance work on a few occasions. Some folks dealt with the situation honorably. It was the few who didn't respect the mutualness of the business relationship who cost me a bit more than I preferred. Freelance, I decided, was perfect when regular income was coming in. These days (since 2006), I have been focusing on working my creative "chops" doing as much writing as I can, either fiction or fact. I do get distracted from it, into other endeavors. I enjoy toying with my web site, getting artistic with photo and illustration work, commenting online including my own blogs, passing letters about certain causes I believe in -- the mess in Darfur, Sudan, the state of the U.S. politically and especially the Middle Class, and animal welfare, music and lyrics, and more. It is not for a lack of passion for being creative and involved that I have seemingly left the business of media, but to have a solid job and a good-enough paycheck. A few years enwly married with bad turns was enough to make me seek companies that had use for my skills and actually were interested in paying me something reasonably above what I earned at FedEx Kinko's. I still intend to have short stories, novels and more published. I intend to develop illustrations for money, and for expression. That is now my idea of freelance. After all, I have had a struggling artist experience in life, but I prefer being a "tortured" sensitive and creative soul with a good paycheck. I am indeed grateful I have managed to come back around to earning a sensible living. Creative freelancing is the bright shine on the silver dollar. The
knot is tied | Roots | Family
name | Where I've called home | What
I've done
WHERE I'VE BEEN Mass to Florida Traveled to and from Florida many times after I moved out of the Sunshine State, in 1992. I've taken some side routes to get a feel for the lesser-known parts of the U.S. (lesser-known to me, that is). With my family, I remember driving around Massachusetts as a child. I have very fond memories of that time, my earlier childhood, and the area plays a large part in those memories. I recall very fondly how autumn was a very fine time in Massachusetts. My family moved to Florida in January 1980. Since the year we moved from Mass., I'd only visited there once. In some ways, it is an imaginary land, rooted deeply in my mind, but not the real place, but my mind's impression of it. I think , based on my 1992 trip back to Mass., that my mind's impressions of some places were kinder than the reality. Was it a typical experience confirming the saying "you can't go home again?" Not really true, but home will not be what you believe in, or what you remember. In fact, you'll realize that your life's experiences shaped what you believe "home" is all about, and that can be rather unsettling when you go back to a place you believe is your "home town." Maybe. It's what I discovered, anyway, in my return to the little town in Massachusetts where I lived until I was 12. Not that I wouldn't want to return, but I had an upsetting feeling that I was glad to have left that little town. Having not been able to see many of my family members, the people with whom we spent our holidays every year, was the worst thing about moving to Florida. Life indeed goes on, but something will happen that will make you decisively glad that you are able to touch base with those people again. That was what I discovered, anyway. My aunts and uncle, my cousins, who I managed to keep in touch with.
Nashville When I graduated from college in 1992, I happened to move out of Florida. I first lived in West Virginia, then in Nashville, where I helped start three media companies and worked for some others. I had an awful lot of memorable work and life experiences while I lived in the Nashville area. I adore the city, and made some friends that I truly miss. With that in mind, check out some photos at a friend's Club Photo site, at Jessie's Club Photos. Jessie lived in Nashville until she met her husband there, around 2002, and moved to Washington state. Her cousin, Sonya, worked with me for a while, and we became good friends. Of course, there were many more friends in the time I lived in Tennssee. I left to sort out a future for us -- my new wife and me. In 2003, I returned to Florida to stay, with Charlene, moving first to South Florida. Florida and Back Already married to Charlene, of course (2002), we had three little kids (a dog, a cat and a turtle) by the end of 2003. Our adorable, gimpy stray cat, which we brought from Tennessee with us in 2003, died of complications from feline diabetes in 2005. Achilles was a sweet cat that we hope suffered less and lived longer, and happier, thanks to us. Hobbes the dog is our best little buddy; Daintree the turtle is also hanging around -- and will be for quite a while, it would seem (he is expected to live around 40 years as a captive turtle).
As for other portions of North America, I've been to Tijuana, Mexico as a side trip to California in college. Also, enjoyed another college trip to Colorado, seeing the Rockies outside of Denver, went to Vail, and cruised through Boulder. There's been short trips to places all over the United States, including Birmingham, Indianapolis, Savannah, Myrtle Beach, Memphis, Raleigh/Durham, Columbia (S.C.); Charleston, Morgantown, White Sulphur Springs including visits to The Greenbrier resort (these three all in West Va.); Chattanooga, Clarksville (TN), Knoxville, Los Angeles, Costa Mesa, Ventura (CA), Dayton, Cincinnati, Columbus (OH), Charlotte, Washington, D.C., and last but not least Boston, Houston, and New York City. No doubt there are other cities I have forgotten or omitted (but may add one day).
Israel I spent several summers (4-8 weeks each) as a teenager in Israel (link is Jerusalem Post), between 1981-1984. I went all over, from Eilat to Gaza: Jerusalem (including nearly every part of the Old City), Tel Aviv, Bethlehem, Jericho, Haifa, Nazareth, En Gedi, The Dead Sea, Sea of Galilee, to the top of Masada, as close as I could be to the Jordanian border without a body search, and many other sites in the Jewish State. Experiences like that can ruin you -- I don't travel enough now. I still miss traveling, more than 20 years after my last childhood trip overseas. Experiences like my journeys throughout Israel change a person. The trips spurred significant and positive changes in the way I look at the world, people, and many aspects of being human. I saw so many things that are now very familiar when I see images from Israel, religious locations and battles (military and not). I hear names of towns and places in the news or other programming or online or in books, and I think of a walk or a tour bus, an "Arab bus," a car or cab ride through somewhere. Those trips made a strong and lasting impact on me.
(continued below)  9/11 and New York City: My Remembrance A Few Personal Photos | See Family Photos, all Photos and Flickr
WHERE I MIGHT BE HEADED Career My dream of a career goal is to publish stories I've written, or to have them published. Essentially, to be a writer: of novels, plays, short stories, screenplays. No senator's son, and not one to cultivate a large network of acquaintances in well-placed positions, there's one way to get where I want to be, and it takes time. My mission, however distant at the moment, is to use my skills to teach and entertain, provoke and inform -- through publication/production and in front of a crowd or a classroom. To be an artist, well-grounded and solidly placed. To effect change through words, inspiring others to action through my fiction and nonfiction. To create and create an effect. But that's an ultimate job, not something I can risk everything to attain, and not in a short time. I hope the world will have gotten wind of me by the time I'm 50. To some folks, this is not a concern. I suppose I think I have something to say. Been appropriately ignored in general in life, so there may be an appropriate irony to it. Not charismatic, too honest for that, words and such creativity are my best form of communication. Earning money is the primary goal today, but I am just about ruined in self-identity due to my lack of writing and other, more creative endeavors that, lately, I haven't done.
Home My ideal home has changed with my location, once a rustic-looking place in the woods with a high deck, broad windows, and a study that overlooks that deck to a lake. The woods are now, happily, palm trees, and the lake has grown into an ocean. In 2003, my wife and I moved to Florida -- and for me, it is a pleasing thing, and that house on the beach may be ours someday. I'll write in that house. For now, home is a less ideal but fairly comfortable apartment in Winter Park.
My heart has a home in a woman named Charlene.
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This is a personal biographical page, meant for personal use only. All twaddle by Jon Osterholm, 1999-2008. J. ROGER OSTERHOLM - "Pops" - Nov 24, 1936 to May 20, 2008Page last updated on Thursday, June 26, 2008 23:07 .
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Creative, hard-working, intuitive,
curious. I suffer stupidity, self-centered
and bully types poorly. 
I lived in Wild, Wonderful 
The Fort
Lauderdale area became my (our) new home in 2003, where
at first I went to work for the area's regional daily. Things were
fine until a woman who ended up my boss decided I was a good man
to practice her sociopathic behavior on. She actually had a six-week-long,
failed marriage despite being in her 50s (I think), and it seemed
my lack of being a doormat, or something, outraged her in some
way. I split, had a hilariously short stump at the Boca Raton
News (it
is under new ownership today; the place was a home for cheats and
codependents like I'd not actually seen before), In 2004, I worked
at FedEx Kinko's, formerly Kinko's, in nearby Boca
Raton as the store's digital (computer) services specialist.
Sadly, that paid more than the assistant editor job, and I stayed
there a while as I sorted out some stress factors and took inventory
to try and see just what I wanted to do in my career.
I've seen
many areas of Florida, having grown up in Daytona.
One-time trips include Tallahassee, Fort Myers,
Lake Okeechobee, South Beach. Taken several trips to Gainesville,
Tampa, 
We have a turtle, too, by
the Aussie name Daintree. That is the name of a state
forest Down Under. 
