My Life, My Journey
About Me
Friend, husband, musician, photographer, videographer, engineer, lover of arts, intrigued by science and technology, computer geek - that's me.
Achievements
My daughter and granddaughter
Loving my wife - my best friend - for many years
Music, photography, making videos, computers
My Name
It's a long story. Legally it's Richard, my wife calls me Casey - so, it's Casey.
Goals
I want to produce a really nice movie someday.
Each day, I want to experience something that make me go "wow".
Casey? Richard? Dick? Caz? Kaz? Huh? Who is this guy!
I'm all of those. Long story. Legally, it's Richard Casimir Danek. Before that, though, when I had a green card, it was Kazimierz Danek (no middle name).
As a child, it was Kazimierz, or Kaziu for short. Then, kids started making fun of me by calling me Cashmere Bouquet.
My childhood friends called me Kaz (or Caz...it's a spelling thing).
High School, sophomore year - I became Casey because we had a new priest who was kind of cool and we shared a name.
After I graduated, I became a citizen. I could change my name to anything. I always liked the name Richard. It had a nice, strong feel to it. So, that's what I did and kept the Americanized spelling of my given Polish name as a middle name.
When I started working, I became Dick. It's what people liked.
Nixon happened and, suddenly, it was Tricky Dick. Ugh.
Got married to my high school sweetheart. She always called me Casey. So, that's as official as it get. It's how I introduce myself.
Photography, Music, Video Making, Writing, Software and Engineering
Someone might say that I have too many interests. I don't mind, though. I don't do them all at the same time.
Photography - ever since I was a kid. My Dad got me interested. I saw magic happen when he let me into his kitchen-darkroom (so I had to stay up late). The images went from nothing to something in the developer. I was hooked. I started shooting more seriously while in college. I did black and white, but moved to color slides when I discovered I really wasn't that good in the darkroom. Later, I did a stint as a professional photographer (studio and wedding work). This happened after my first career, in software engineering.
Music - my Mom got me started. Piano lessons at about seven years old. Continued for many years. Turned to guitar in high school because, I wanted to do rock and roll. Still do.
Video - got the bug about 15 years ago. Spencer Cable Access had an open house and I dropped in to see what they were doing. That lead to covering the town's school committee meetings. When I moved to Agawam, I hooked up with thier cable access center and started - you guessed it, school committee meetings. In between all this, I got the bug for making cooking and gardening shows plus worked on a movie short with Spencer's Paul C. McKinney.
Writing - this is both song writing and script writing. I'm not that good at either, but it's just fun to plod along just the same.
Software and Engineering - always liked tinkering and seeing how things work. Went to school for electrical engineering, but ended up working more in software over time. These things still pique my interest but I don't really do them anymore.