Eric Leif Peters
(an anagram of "fierce reptiles" and "fertile recipes")
The Secret Identity (Whoops! Not any more!) of:

When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful, a miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees, well, they'd be singing so happily, joyfully, playfully watching me.
But then they sent me away to teach me how to be sensible, logical, responsible, practical.
And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable, clinical, intellectual, cynical.

There are times when all the world's asleep the questions run too deep for such a simple man.
Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned? I know it sounds absurd, but please tell me who I am.

Now watch what you say or they'll be calling you a radical, a liberal, a fanatical criminal.
Won't you sign up your name? We'd like to feel you're acceptable, respectable, presentable, a vegetable!

At night, when all the world's asleep the questions run so deep for such a simple man.
Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned? I know it sounds absurd, but please tell me who I am.
     -Supertramp, The Logical Song

Supernova-bright, ginzu knife-keen, hagfish slime-slick, and Bush Administration idea-poor describe Eric Peters. Eric was incubated in the moist, warm, sunlit sand of east Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, hatching at 7:30 AM on 18 April 1959 (and again several hours later). His first word was reportedly "humuhumunukunukuapua'a", which his puzzled parents eventually discovered was the local name for a species of Hawaiian triggerfish. Protracted psychoanalysis (for both Eric and his parents) followed, and on professional advice, he was abandoned in the desert, where he was raised by lizards and developed a predilection for herpetology (which remains a misdemeanor in states with names that end in either the letter 'a' or 'i', but is the norm in states that end in both).

Eric triumphed over several serious childhood traumas, including the Nixon Administration and prolonged incarceration at Linden Elementary and Taylor Allderdice High Schools. His seventh grade essay, entitled "Why can't I go outside if you're not teaching me anything, anyway?" won him the coveted Most Visits to the Principal's Office Award. Later, Eric would earn a district record for most parental visits, and his chair in the office was fitted with a commemorative plaque and placed in the school's award case. During his brief periods of parole, he wandered through the Allegheny and southern Appalachian mountains collecting amphibians and reptiles for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and defeating demonic forces with the aid of his silver-stringed guitar (on which he cannot play a single note). Upon completing his sentence at high school (with time off for bad behavior), Eric immediately fled to Las Vegas, Nevada and, after one look at the place, fled back to Pittsburgh again.

Eric then attended the Community College of Allegheny County and the University of Pittsburgh, graduating in 1982 with no distinction whatever, other than a B.S. in Biology (and he has been B.S.-ing ever since). Because Eric had the foresight to keep the negatives in a safe place, Jeannette Louise Ford was coaxed into marrying Eric in 1983 (a union of the sacred and profane widely viewed as Eric's best decision in life to date). Eric and Jeannette moved to Athens, Georgia, where Eric pursued (and eventually caught up with) a Master's degree in Zoology at the University of Georgia, conducting his thesis research at the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (SREL).

In January 1987, Jeannette and Eric moved to Fort Collins, Colorado, where they learned to live on scenery. Eric continued his research at SREL, and also conducted experiments on the measurement of ectotherm metabolic rates using elimination of rubidium-86. Skillfully avoiding the attendant burdens of a well-funded research project and, having cunningly chosen one of the few departments on campus with no teaching assistantships, Eric taught Macintosh continuing education courses and ran a microscopic computer business. This wild success permitted Eric and Jeannette to amass a truly important collection of outstanding bills (many in several editions). The joy of continuing to pay credit card interest for food (long after the carbon contained within it had left their bodies) still generated nostalgic tears in Eric's and Jeannette's eyes for many years afterward. After a long and painful labor, Eric eventually gave birth to a two-pound dissertation in Radiological Health Sciences at Colorado State University in 1993. In 1996, Eric became an Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences at Chicago State University, and he was promoted to Associate Professor in 2001 (he was recently promoted to Professor, effective 1 September 2010).

Eric then spent a month teaching ecology at Taras Shevchenko University in Kiev, Ukraine (because he wanted to see what real food looked like), and then began a three-year post-doctoral fellowship at SREL. During this time, Eric's research in radioactive environments won him international acclaim (three nations count as "international", right?). After electroconvulsive therapy, Eric no longer flies into a blind rage at the mention of the words "catfish", "DOE", or "Westinghouse". Unfortunately, however, his resulting radiation exposure has not caused him to grow to Godzilla-like proportions, shrink to the subatomic level, or develop spider powers, although he HAS grown stouter, grayer, shorter of breath, goutier, and crankier.

Eric and Jeannette currently reside at Rising Gorge, their baronial shack in the suburban hell that is Glenwood, Illinois. There, Eric attempts to prop up his tottering sanity by raising prize-winning dandelions and crabgrass. His consumption of beer allows him to maintain a close resemblance to a depilated yeti, and he has won his neighborhood's Best Halloween Costume contest (entitled, 'Scary Mean Man in the Middle of the Block') for the past 12 years running.

Eric was recently described by a couple of people (OK, one person, but the other agreed) as 'polymathic', and has been described by many other persons using both shorter and longer words, some of which can occasionally be heard on network television. His interests include: not watching sports (especially golf), not inflating grades, not voting Republican, and not exercising daily (his many other idiot interests can be accessed by clicking here). Thanks to the several variant spellings of his first name, and the fact that his middle name was misspelled on his birth certificate, Eric's life-long hobby has been spelling his name correctly for others.

Sorry, but the photo shown on his home page is about as good as it gets.