User:Cla68

I am originally from the U.S. One of my main activities is running. I completed the 2001 Montgomery County Marathon in the Parks and the 2010 Tokyo Marathon. I encourage everyone to complete a marathon once as it is an incredible feeling of accomplishment. Due to chronic knee pain, in May 2011 I started transitioning to minimalist running. I completed the switch in about three months and now no longer do heel-toe running. My knee pain has, so far, just about disappeared. Recently, I started participating in triathlons, so I also swim and cycle. If you're not doing so already, please, get out of the house and challenge yourself. You might be surprised at how great it feels.

About my editing
I've been editing Wikipedia with an account since January 2006. As the list below shows, I used to work mainly on military history or Japan-related articles. The entries in the "to do" list below are articles that I plan on trying to take to Featured Article (FA)-level status, if they aren't there already. I don't mean to imply any ownership over these articles. I have listed most of the reference books in my possession on this page.

That being said, I'm generally disillusioned with Wikipedia. On the one hand, I have found the site to be a powerful tool for making information publicly and readily available (such as this article, which I started and have kept regularly updated) and as an invaluable online bibliography in a large variety of topics. Unfortunately, however, the project suffers from some serious problems, such as its biographies of living people being used for attacks on their subjects and activist ownership in certain topic areas. In addition, Wikipedia's administration has proven itself time and time again to be a complete shambles which, under its current system and culture, sees little hope of ever being rectified. Furthermore, the Wikimedia Foundation has so far shown a conspicuous lack of leadership in mitigating Wikipedia's and Wikimedia Commons' numerous governance issues.

For more discussion on these and other topics, please check out Wikipediocracy, which is an Internet blog and forum dedicated to discussing Wikipedia, but is independent of and not sponsored by Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation. I am a trustee of that site.

Content
Articles that I've edited, with appreciated assistance from other editors, and successfully nominated for FA:

Operation Ten-Go Naval Battle of Guadalcanal Battle of the Eastern Solomons Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands Battle of Rennell Island Battle of Savo Island Battle of the Tenaru Battle of Tulagi and Gavutu-Tanambogo Invasion of Tulagi (May 1942) Battle of Edson's Ridge Actions along the Matanikau 1994 Fairchild Air Force Base B-52 crash Battle of Cape Esperance Michael Brown Okinawa assault incident Ehime Maru and USS Greeneville collision Battle for Henderson Field 1994 Black Hawk shootdown incident Matanikau Offensive Koli Point action 2007 United States Air Force nuclear weapons incident Carlson's patrol Battle of Tassafaronga Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi Battle of Mount Austen, the Galloping Horse, and the Sea Horse Operation Ke Guadalcanal campaign USS Iowa turret explosion Fred Moosally Battle of the Coral Sea

FAs as a co-nominator: Japanese battleship Tosa (Ed did most of the work) Japanese aircraft carrier Kaga (with Sturmvogel 66 and Dank)  Japanese aircraft carrier Hōshō (with Sturmvogel 66)  Japanese aircraft carrier Akagi (with Sturmvogel 66) Featured topic: Guadalcanal Campaign Good articles: Asama-Sansō incident A Glimpse of Hell (book) Eurasian Land Bridge DeSmogBlog Lionel Gilbert Gordon McClymont Robert Madgwick

"To do" list (in roughly this order):


 * Maccabiah bridge collapse
 * Tailhook scandal
 * Japan Airlines Flight 123
 * Sullivan brothers
 * Iran Air Flight 655
 * USS Kitty Hawk riot
 * 1977 Yokohama F-4 crash
 * Infamy speech

Welcome and appreciated compliments from fellow editors




By the order of the coordinators of the Military history WikiProject, you are hereby awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of your many valuable contributions to military history articles, and, in particular, your leading role in the creation of numerous featured articles on the topic of the Pacific Theater of World War II. For the coordinators, Kirill Lokshin 01:39, 5 April 2007 (UTC) &mdash;Charles P._ (Mirv) 04:30, 10 December 2009 (UTC)