Chuck McCaffrey's Homepage

Hi! Welcome to my homepage. In the column to the right, you will find links to things that I want to share as well as things that are of interest and importance to me.

This is a very basic page for the time being. I have no web-authoring tools and little time to make my pages visually compelling. I simply hardcode HTML directly into a file using a basic editor. I'll elaborate as time permits. These simple pages, however, have the benefit of being quick and easy to create, maintain, and download.

In the meantime, enjoy this page and the pages linked from it that describe me and things that are important to me.

Here is a link to My Journal, which you can read to follow me and my adventures. I try to post at least one journal entry per week, so you might want to check my journal every now and then for new adventures.

Currently my adventures are primarily related to my life as a medical student in the Caribbean. Rather than buy a red Corvette and marry a woman many years younger than I am, I decided to celebrate my mid-life crisis by becoming a physician ... not that I've given up on buying a red Corvette and marrying a woman many years younger than I am, mind you.

Mine wasn't much of a mid-life crisis, actually. I like being precisely who I am, I like being precisely the age that I am at any given instant, I like feeling precisely the age that I feel at any given instant, which may or may not be the same as the age I am, I have wanted to go to medical school for a long time and I like being a med student. But telling the story this way is funnier.

Oh, yes, and by the way, I am a very, very funny comedian, too. Accordingly, much of what you read here may be satiric, ironic, witty, playful, or just plain funny. Others may disagree with the assertion that I am funny, but they are wrong, just plain wrong. (You know who you are, and yes, Phil, this means you! :-)

Wesley United Methodist Church and Foundation, a congregation and ministry of the United Methodist Church and my church home. Being part of the Wesley family changed my life. I also have a personal sprituality page.

Alpha Sigma Phi Fraternity, which is my fraternity home, where I spent most of my free time from 1981 to 2005 being the adult alumni adviser to my younger brothers and sharing with them a brotherhood that changed my life. I also have a personal Alpha Sigma Phi page.

The University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign (UIUC), where I did my undergrad and most of my grad work, and where I was adjunct faculty. If you like, feel free to read my Ph.D. Dissertation. I also have a personal UIUC page.

The first two-and-a-half years that I attended UIUC—September 1972 through December 1974—I lived at Illini Tower. In August 2007, some of the folks who had lived on the 8th floor of IT got together for a reunion.

The College of Medicine and Health Sciences, where I am currently a medical student. I also have a personal page discussing medical education and practice.

Eastern Illinois University, where I have completed the coursework for an MS in Technology Management, which is like an MBA but for computer geeks and engineers like me. I have written most of my thesis, and now that I have the data I need to complete it, I shall defend and deposit my thesis when I return to Lovely Central Illinois.

Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute, where I studied software engineering, a rigorous approach to computer programming that applies to it true engineering discipline. Studying software engineering also changed my life because I learned to think beyond the way I used to think as a programmer, a craftsman, and to think instead as a true software engineer, a scientist. There is an important difference. Feel free to read my masters thesis to learn about that difference. I also have a personal software engineering webpage.

Parkland College in Champaign, Illinois, where I was adjunct faculty and where I took post-baccalaureate undergraduate classes.

The University of Illinois (UIS) at Springfield, where I shall someday (after residency, probably) complete online a BS in Math and Computer Science that I began as an undergrad at UIUC. While I am completing that degree at UIS, I shall also complete the Certificate in Software Engineering at UIUC.

Springfield High School, from which I graduated on June 1, 1972. I also have a personal SHS webpage.

We held the 35th Reunion of the Springfield High School Graduating Class of 1972 over the weekend of June 29 and 30, 2007.

Lawrence Grade School, where I was a student in a magnet school program. Project Lawrence is the name of a group effort that keeps the students from those classes in touch with each other at 40 years' distance and more.

Running, which also changed my life.

Nel Mezzo Del Cammin, which is the collective name for creative and professional activities outside of medicine for the second half of my jouney on the road of life.

My Vita

My Resume

My Confessions

My Photos