He enjoys spending his spare time with his family, playing softball with his coworkers, fishing, carpentry, and traveling. He is a family man that likes to spend time with his kids. His wife Elaine works full time as a claims adjuster so they alternate in taking their kids to different activities (hockey, ballet, soccer, scouts) in the evening.

As in most American households, the kids determine most of the schedule for vacations and television. John thinks that the most important thing is that they do things together, like hiking and fishing. Once a year they go to either Colorado or upstate New York to go camping. When he and Elaine have time to themselves, they enjoy traveling to Canada to drive around and look at the landscape. John hopes to buy a little house outside of Montreal when he retires. He took some French lessons in college and can communicate well enough.

At work he is competent, but worried about keeping current with new trends in his field. He is also wary of some of the younger employees who seem to have more computer skills than he. With the current economic conditions, he is worried that he might get passed over for a promotion or even laid off if he does not keep his skill set current. This is stressful, because his family comes first and he cannot easily find time to arrange and attend evening courses.

John believes learning is restricted to schools, something his kids do, but that he might need to take up if he can find time to attend class.

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