87 Eye-Catching Facts About Richard Lowe

Media hosts, podcast interviewers, and event organizers: feel free to use these facts when preparing introductions.

1. I am the owner of The Writing King, which provides writing services from ghostwriting to cybersecurity technical writing.
2. Until November 2013, I managed a gaggle of computer geeks. There are eight computer geeks to a gaggle.
3. From my earliest memory, I’ve been fascinated by geology and history. The first adult level book I read was when I was seven; it was the history of the battle of Iwo Jima in World War II. I read everything I could find about that battle, a total of over 20 books.
4. At one point, I owned 178 domain names and maintained over a dozen personal web sites. I have since cut that down to a handful of domains and 3 sites.
5. I began working in the computer field in 1979 for a company called Software Techniques. I was hired out of college by my professor who was starting a consulting company. One week I was the daily manager for a market, in college and living at home with my parents; the next week I had moved to Orange County, was a computer geek, and had my own place.
6. I have written thousands of articles, most for my own personal web sites, and published over a hundred in various computer journals.
7. As a ghostwriter, I have written over 54 books for clients.
8. I own the original and animated Star Trek series, Deep Space Nine, CSI, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Outer Limits, Twilight Zone and Battlestar Galactica.
9. I am a very creative person, and spend long hours writing articles, creating graphic art and photographing nature, renaissance festivals, and belly dancers. I’ve got over 980,000 pictures on my photography web site.
10. I was the photographer for the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena from 2005 through 2013.
11. I have scanned all the film photos which I had taken over my lifetime; over 2,000 photo negatives (all that I had) using a service to convert negatives into digital format.
12. I always check twice to make sure my doors are locked.
13. I am very religious but tend to keep my religious beliefs private. I’ll be happy to have a discussion about my beliefs with anyone in person (but not online please).
14. I was married to a Guatemalan lady named Claudia when I was 33 years old. She was five years older. We were married after dating for 3 weeks, and we were married four times within the space of 2 weeks. There’s quite an interesting story behind that. Claudia passed away on February 1st, 2005, at 10:27 am due to sepsis.
15. I love dressing up in costume. The Labyrinth of Jareth is my favorite event of the year.
16. I never talk (or write) trash about anyone. I prefer to encourage people by mentioning their strong points and complimenting them when they do well. My comments are always honest, and I do not just compliment people unless they deserve to be complimented. But I would prefer to say nothing if there is nothing good to say.
17. I have never tasted alcohol, never smoked, never used any illegal drug of any kind, and never gambled.
18. My grandfather was in the Navy in the late 1930s and early 1940s. He was a crewmember on a patrol boat, part of the Yangtze River patrol just before World War II. He was captured by the Japanese on Corregidor and spent four years in a POW camp in Japan.
19. I have my genealogy going back about 300 years on both sides, and I have my genetic profile both maternal and paternal.
20. I am currently working on multiple science fiction novels, dozens of nonfiction books, and fiction books in various genres. I’ve published 113+ books under my own name.
21. I wrote The Ghostwriting Advantage, the comprehensive guide to hiring a ghostwriter. It covers how to vet a ghostwriter, what the process looks like, contract terms, and pricing.
22. I founded the Clearwater Science Fiction Writing Critique group, because writers get better in the company of other writers.
23. I can perform math in binary, octal, decimal and hex.
24. One day I purchased a chinchilla for my late wife which she named Dexter. She loved the animal, and he was very cute. He didn’t live long, but he cheered her up while he was alive.
25. I had a cat named Zeya, and after she died, I got a second cat, also named Zeya.
26. I have painted over 1,500 small lead fantasy miniatures.
27. I owned the original Dungeons and Dragons books, plus most of the other role-playing games out in the late 1970s. I have since sold them.
28. From 1975 to 1978 I belonged to the Flying Buffalo gaming club, part of a gaming group at Rim of the World High School. We played wargames like Empire of the Petal Throne and Nuclear Destruction.
29. My favorite book is Lord of the Rings. You can see my full desert island book list for the rest.
30. I remember the face of my doctor when I was born.
31. I am an Air Force brat.
32. I started photographing at the Irwindale Renaissance Pleasure Faire because it helped me overcome the grief after my wife passed away. I found the faire people were very supportive during that time of my life.
33. I photographed belly dancers because I enjoy the aesthetics of the dance. It helps me wash away the stress of life and makes me feel good about the universe.
34. I produced the bellydance show Bellydance Kaleidoscope in 2008 and 2009, and sponsored shows including Around the World in 80 Days, Mythical Creatures, and Scarlett’s Nightmare, with the proceeds going to local battered women’s shelters.
35. I am CERT trained (Community Emergency Response Team), as well as an expert in disaster recovery and business continuity.
36. I am a trained cybersecurity expert.
37. The fact that I never raised children is a source of great sadness to me (Claudia was unable to have children).
38. My favorite places are Joshua Tree National Park and the Grand Canyon.
39. I have a dream to visit the top of Mount San Gorgonio, the great pyramids of Egypt, the battlefield where Alexander defeated Darius the Great, Athens, Tonga and Rome.
40. One of my goals is to visit and photograph every national park in North America. I am about one third of the way to this goal.
41. One of my favorite artists is Luis Royo.
42. I enjoy movies and have over 3,500 DVDs and Blu-rays in my collection.
43. My first visit outside the country was to Ensenada on the Arabian Knights at Sea Cruise, a belly dance cruise. I have since gone on four of those cruises.
44. I do not fear death in any way.
45. I watched the original Star Trek series when it was first aired in the mid-1960s.
46. The most surprising thing in my life was realizing I was a widower at age 45.
47. When I was a small child, my parents and I visited the beach. I got a sunburn so bad that I was deathly afraid of the beach and ocean and didn’t visit again until many years later. Now I love the beach and ocean (and wear sunscreen).
48. The first faire I visited was in Devore in, I believe, 1986.
49. I am a history buff and thoroughly enjoy reading anything related to Rome, Greece, and Egypt.
50. I drive at the speed limit or below. I use cruise control to keep my speed where I want it.
51. My sister and her husband Ken founded and run Schmahl Science Workshops in San Jose, a nonprofit that gives kids of all backgrounds hands-on science education.
52. I have an IQ of 150.
53. A few days after my wife passed away, I drove to Joshua Tree National Park and spent half the day sitting on top of a place called Skull Rock.
54. I still have my wisdom teeth and appendix.
55. I have never had surgery.
56. I think the original 3 Star Wars movies are among the best movies of all time, and the third trilogy (the Disney ones) is easily the worst. Lord of the Rings is also in my top 5.
57. I usually know when someone is calling, and who that person is, before my phone rings.
58. One of my major life goals is to visit all of the major caves in the United States. So far, I’ve visited six, including Grand Canyon Caverns, Mitchel Caverns, and Carlsbad Caverns.
59. In my professional life, I have taken over 100 classes, everything from geology to computer science to writing.
60. Between the ages of 19 and 33 I was so painfully introverted that I worked the night shift, rarely talked to anyone and never said anything I didn’t have to. There were times I would go weeks without saying a word to anyone.
61. I played the original Dungeon game on the VAX (later known as ZORK) to within a few points of the endgame.
62. Christmas is the most depressing time of year for me.
63. I own virtually all of the stamps from the island of Tonga.
64. I have lived through magnitude 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3 earthquakes.
65. When I was young, I sold Burpee seeds so I could get a telescope. I didn’t sell any, so my parents bought them all from me so I could get the telescope. We had the best flower gardens in the neighborhood.
66. I love cartoons, especially Bugs Bunny.
67. When I first picked up Lord of the Rings in high school, it took me a year to get past the first 50 pages. Then I read the remainder in a weekend, and then read it again the following weekend (yes, the whole trilogy).
68. I grew up in the Inland Empire, moving from San Bernardino to Lake Arrowhead between 8th and 9th grade. I hated everything about the mountains while I was living there and moved away as soon as I found a decent job after turning 18.
69. My first “real” job was the night liquor manager at the liquor store in the old Lake Arrowhead village. My boss was a German submarine commander from World War II. I used the money from this job to buy a brand-new car, a Toyota, and I paid every payment myself.
70. I became interested in belly dancing when I was 44, shortly after my wife (Claudia) passed away. I was very caved in, almost totally introverted, by my late wife’s death, and something about belly dance helped to pull me out of my despair. Watching dancers perform never fails to lift me up and make me feel good about life.
71. I first went to Renaissance faire in 1986 at Devore, and I went once, and only once, per year after that until late 2004, when I went twice. On the way home from the second faire I had one of those turning points in life that changed me forever. I decided to come back to life (this was before Claudia passed away). The change in my presence and life was immediate and profound.
72. The first time I went to Catalina Island was to scatter the ashes of my wife’s mother in the year 2000. I visited again just two days before Claudia passed away with one of my best friends. I had no clue how sick Claudia was that day, but she passed away two days later from sepsis. A week after that, I traveled to Catalina Island for a third time to scatter Claudia’s ashes. I had no last wishes from her and felt she would like to be with her mother on the same island. There was a major storm that day, and I chartered a small boat. There were waterspouts and it was raining heavily. As I scattered the ashes the rain stopped, and the sun came out for a few minutes. As we moved away, back to shore, I looked back and saw over three hundred birds slowly circling up from the ocean where I had laid her ashes moments before.
73. In elementary school I was beat up virtually every day on the way to school and home by several bullies. I learned to hide and not be seen as a survival tool. As I moved into junior high school, I became painfully introverted, and throughout high school I was so shy that few people even knew I existed.
74. I have written over 1,000 articles.
75. I love to create. I am an author, a web designer, artist, graphic artist, photographer, and videographer.
76. My attitude about life is life is to be lived. I flourish and prosper.
77. I firmly believe that life is what you make it. People make their own hells and their own heavens and everything in between.
78. I love going to museums.
79. I believe a rainbow is a sign of good luck, life and prosperity, and most especially change for the better (although that is not always obvious at the time).
80. I am an expert at disaster recovery, a CERT member (Community Emergency Response Team) and an expert at business continuity. My first disaster recovery project was recovering the computers at the Public Broadcasting System in Washington DC after a major fire.
81. I have one surviving sister and three other sisters who died at various times in their childhood, including one that was older than me.
82. I have several tattoos: a dragon on one shoulder, a phoenix on the other, and a coral snake on each arm. The dragon is me. Dragons are kind, compassionate, smart, etc… but you don’t mess with dragons. The phoenix is the way I view my life.
83. I have a list of a dozen places on Earth that I will visit before I die. They include the place where Alexander defeated Darius the Great in Turkey, the Island kingdom of Tonga, Rome and a certain place on the Rhine in Switzerland. Each place has a certain meaning to me.
84. When Claudia, my late wife, became critically ill and remained ill for over nine years, all but one of my friends (Ken Cureton) found other places to be. I learned to completely trust myself and I learned how strong I am spiritually at that time. This was the most difficult time of my life and I somehow lived through it and came out the other side a million times stronger than I went in. I literally pulled Claudia back from death twice, until sepsis finally took her away.
85. I’ve seen half a dozen tarot card readers and others who claim to use one means or another to forecast the future. Every one of them has said exactly the same thing about my future.
86. Unlike most people, I know what I am searching for.
87. I have published two Kindle bestselling books, Focus on LinkedIn and How to Sell On eBay.