Mike

Hi, I'm Mike Slama, representing the west coast wing of Central Austin Cohousing from the SF Bay Area in California. I'm recently retired from a 25 year engineering career making hi-tech silicon widgets. Along the way, I spent a couple of years (1989-91) living in Austin, and liked the area lots. I first became exposed to the concept of cohousing in Austin via an article about McCamant and Durrett published in the New York Times shortly after they wrote their book, and decided that I had to live that way someday. I became a member of several groups that tried to develop cohousing in the South Bay Area, but, sadly, all of them failed. I've toured about 15 cohousing sites, and liked them all! Needless to say, I was delighted to find CAC! I'm a dance nut. Started with Balkan Folk dance many years ago in college, and continue with it today. I liked the music so much that I play a Bulgarian Flute called 'Kaval' in a local Bulgarian band. Recently, I've moved more into social dance, and spend 8 hours a day on all the weekends between Thanksgiving and Christmas dancing waltz, schottische, and polka with all comers at a local Dickens Faire. During the day, I'm usually out in the garden. "Square Foot Gardening" was a PBS series/book some years back, and recommended an 'intensive' gardening technique that I've used for the last 20 years or so. One of my Austin Folkdancing friends is currently in the Austin Master Gardener program, so I'm hoping for some synergy!