Who is Lee Hansen

I'm a Giant Squid, and in June 2009 I became a member of the Giant Squid 100 Club.

If you've created and nurtured 50 or more great Squidoo lenses, you can become a Giant Squid. I managed to reach this goal in July 2008, less than a year after I became a lensmaster. And I got a cool tee shirt in the mail with the Giant Squid emblem on it. I wore it to the Labor Day parade in New Hampshire, hoping another Squidoo-er would say "hey."

It's not hard to accomplish if you're a Squidoo addict ... in fact, it's a natural growth phenomenon that happens as you build new lenses and improve the more mature ones.

I built more than 50 lenses in my first year as a Squidoo lensmaster, and I find countless ideas for new lenses all the time. Go for it, you'll be happy you did!

July 2008 New Giant Squids

Four of my lenses have been honored as Squidoo Lens of the Day (LOTD) :

• Eco-Friendly Tiny Houses


• St. Patrick's Day Fun for Everyone


• Easter Coloring Book Printables


• Make Your Own Costumes, Masks and Face Paint

I'm a member of the first class of Squidoo Rocket Moms, the smartest women on the web. Our team of less than 100 mom lensmasters each created 6 uniquely branded Rocket Moms lenses in 6 weeks. It was fun and challenging to build a new lens (or several) for the topic of the week.

Here's my Rocket Moms lensography featuring all the lenses I created in Session 1 plus links to all the other Rocket Mom lenses for each weekly project assignment.

I was the neighborhood angel for two Squidoo topic categories:

Hobbies & Games & Toys > Coloring

Arts & Design > Graphic Design > Clip Art

I got my newest pair of angel wings in February, 2011. My first tour of duty as a Squidoo Angel was in October 2010.

I still fly around those old 'hoods checking for great lenses and looking for that other kind. I also visit lenses all over Squidoo these days, just like in the "good old days" of my first Angel tour of duty.

I've been drawing pictures for as long as I can recall. I spent many hours of my childhood creating fantasy worlds on paper. I made fabulous paper dolls, paper animals, paper craft villages and paper decorations.

I was never bored as a kid if I had a block of paper and some colored pencils. I could always create toys for myself, my 5 siblings and my friends.

When I was 10 years old I went away for the first time to overnight summer camp. The weather for our first week was rainy and wet and cold. We spent a lot of time in the cabin, so I created all sorts of paper toys and message carriers for myself and cabin mates. We strung up strings from bunk to bunk and created a network to send paper messages and little paper toys to one another inside the cabin without leaving our bunks.

I spend most of my day drawing pictures and making paper crafts as an adult, only now my favorite drawing and design tool is my computer. Some of my graphics are famous.

The rest of my work time I devote to marketing my free clip art web sites: Lee Hansen Graphics and Clip Art 'n Crafts and working on my Squidoo lenses. Just to keep things interesting, I blog about paper crafts, coloring pages, masks and clip art, too.

This is the original senior geek squids group on Squidoo - anyone over 50 is welcome to join.

Join the Senior Geek Squids group and feature your About Me lens in the members plexo. Submit your best lenses about being a boomer, Geek Squid Senior or grandparent by contacting me or suggest a lens that's appropriate by using the Senior Geeks Group Guestbook comment form.

I've been taking snapshots since I was a kid. My first camera was a Brownie black and white. I got a Polaroid Swinger as a 6th grade graduation gift. Next came an InstaMatic, a Petri 35mm, a Minolta 35mm, several Olympus 35's plus a Sony 8mm video camera until digital cameras became affordable (under 500 bucks).

I shoot most of my photos and video these days with one of 3 digital cameras (2 Olympus, 1 Canon) but I'm really longing for for a high-end Nikon \model with interchangeable lenses and many mega pixel resolution. Perhaps this summer ... for now I am filling up xD cards faster than I can off load the pix. I recently got a Flip Mino HD video camera as a gift - it's great for capturing spur of the moment video of nature and my grandchildren.

I share some of my photographs for royalty free use at Morguefile - my portfolio name is ImageFactory.

My grandparents immigrated from Europe in the early 20th century. My mother was an only child; my father was next to the youngest of 9 children.

My grandfathers were hardworking tradesmen: one was a professional baker from Germany, the other a tall ships sailor from Scandinavia.

My grandmothers worked outside the home to help support the family. It's no wonder the work ethic is so entrenched in me and my 5 younger siblings.

For the first 3 years of my life I was virtually bald and most people thought I was a boy (not surprising since I had a boy name and wore corduroy overalls most of the time). When my hair finally grew it was thick and wildly curly. It's still very curly, but these days it's a mix of auburn and white streaks. It's moving toward total white out ... but I'm growing it long just the same.

I was born in Boston and lived in Massachusetts until I was 10 years old. I still have a slight accent, but I think that's mainly a holdover from when I lived with my Boston-Irish grandmother. Yeah, I say baaath sometimes, and once in a great while you'll here me say caah instead of car. But that's usually if I'm very tired or I've been in New England for a few weeks ... it creeps into the speech!

My parents moved to the (then) wilderness of southern New Hampshire in the early 1960's. Dad commuted to Burlington, MA every day via back roads through New Hampshire until he could pick up Route 3 heading south in Tyngsoborough.

Today, most of southern New Hampshire's residents are former Massachusetts residents or their offspring who moved there to escape high taxes and traffic. So, the Nashua regional areas that were once a quiet patchwork of rural roads lined with farm fields, single homes, pastures and forest areas are now overcrowded suburban roadways that lead to McMansion housing developments, office parks, strip malls and parking lots.

I lived in New Hampshire most of my adult life, relocating briefly to the North Shore of Massachusetts for a few years before moving to southern Pennsylvania. I still love New England, and visit New Hampshire and Vermont at least every other month, year round.

It's ironic that the region where I live now - the heart of Berks county's Amish farmland - is going through a similar metamorphosis ... except the growth isn't being managed well and there appears to be little hope for the next 10 years as far as traffic and transportation are concerned.

I'm planning to retire in Vermont - the Green Mountain State. My husband and I love New England and we recently purchased a second home in the middle of the state. I spend a little more than half my time in Vermont now, and if our plans work out, we'll both be living there permanently in five years or less.

I lived in New England almost 50 years then moved to southern Pennsylvania in 1999 to live closer to my parents as they got a bit older. (They relocated from New Hampshire to Berks County in the mid 1970s).

One thing I really love about moving south 350 miles from New England is the longer growing season. There is no way I could grow spinach outdoors all winter in New Hampshire without a heated greenhouse, but in Southern Pennsylvania, I can and I do.

Living in Pennsylvania has its benefits, but I really miss the ocean. Flat land and muddy creeks just can't compare to salty air, crashing waves, rocky coastlines, sea birds and sand dunes. I'll be retiring to a nice little home in New England - it's a small, green eco-friendly house in an artist-friendly town in south central Vermont.

My firstborn, Trish, is married and mom to 2 of my 3 grandkids. She's got a busy life raising 2 active children and driving a school bus in her home community. Oh, and she's a Squidoo member (her Squidoo name is FairyWings).

Younger daughter Rebekah is also married and has a 2 year old girl who's my namesake. Bekah's also an artist, crafts maven and a talented writer working from home in the Green Mountains of Vermont. She writes at Squidoo as lensmaster stringthestars.

Photo: Trish and Bekah, 1976

I love to photograph signs, especially signs with my name or names of my family members. I also collect old signs, posters and labels of all types.

My collection of old signs includes large and small signs from television studio sets, political campaigns, streets and buildings. I have signs with names, directions, warnings, informational graphics and pictures. I particularly like wacky signs, antique signs and nameplates.

At one time I had a collection of old tinware and farm tools. I sold it to pay tuition when I went back to school. I still have most of the antique furniture, though, and that stuff we use every day. I'm a Thrift Shop Maven - and not ashamed to admit my daughters have followed in my reuse-recycle-remake footsteps.

My husband also likes old furniture, junk and tools. Unlike me, Doug never gets rid of anything, including his '84 Toyota Celica. We have a detached garage mostly filled with his collection of stuff plus my mountain bike.

I've been working on the web since it was born. Before, actually. I used the Arpanet to send email when I worked in the software engineering publications group at Digital Equipment Corporation. I was a member of the VAX DOCUMENT (now DEC DOCUMENT) development team from 1983 to 1989, then a DEC publications and info design manager until 1994 when I left DEC for an SGML publishing tools project management position at another high tech firm in Massachusetts.

I got my BS in business and marketing (with programming and graphic design extras thrown in because I switched majors 3 times) on the twenty year plan. It wasn't my intention to take a generation to get my education, it just happened ... I started college as a graphic design major in 1978, but opportunities to learn programming that meshed well with my typesetting and design skills came along and I followed the rabbit trail. Career and family demands also interrupted my studies periodically, until finally in 1995 I decided it was time to finish my degree or abandon the credits. (I *really* wanted to graduate from Daniel Webster College in 1996, before my younger daughter got her BA at Castleton.)

I wrote a marketing thesis in 1995 based on my prediction that the Internet would overtake broadcast media as a marketing channel and become a delivery pipeline for communications and entertainment. That premise was based on Web 1.0 technology when most personal computer users - those who were actually online - used a dial-up connection and browsed with Mosaic, CompuServe or AOL.

Well, we're way past all that today, and still flying fast on this roller coaster. Web 3.0 is in the design stages ... I can't wait to see what comes through the wire and air next. I'm getting up to speed on XHTML, CSS and new online marketing strategies.

I blog about Squidoo where I share my favorite Squid-tech lenses, ramble about things marketing, tech and web, and occasionally post my Squidoo traffic stats and lens rank information.

Software Engineer's Nightmare by imagefactory
Browse other Humor T-Shirts

This includes street art, sidewalk art, poster art, digital art, graffiti art and screen printing.

I've been a long time fan of Peter Max and Andy Warhol. I also really love Banksy, Keith Haring and (more recently) Shepard Fairey. I have a real love for Sixties Art and Artists.

I've had a real variety of jobs since I was a kid. I worked at some really lousy jobs, and I've had some great jobs - a professional career, even. I really enjoy being a freelance marketing professional and a Giant Squid.

I decided to list every job I've done in my lifetime so far. Don't get excited - they're all legal ... and respectable.

Lawn Mower
Baby Sitter
Bean Picker
Strawberry Picker
Camp Counselor
Laundry Worker
Waitress
Dishwasher
Grill Cook
Macrame Artist
Embroidery Artist
Seamstress
Photographer
Typesetter
Proofreader
Graphic Artist
Programmer
Tech Writer
Web Designer
Editor
Publishing Manager
Designer
Program Manager
Photographer
Wardrobe Assistant
Sign Maker
Print Maker
Illustrator
Marketing Consultant
Lensmaster
Giant Squid
Rocket Mom
Mom
Grandma
Squidoo Angel
Vermonter

My favorite occupations so far have been Mom, artist and job-sharing publishing manager. I'm loving being a grandma, and working very hard at learning to be a good one. Long distance love is a real challenge, but worth the effort and the miles you rack up. My dear husband and I have decided to retire in New England, so our commute to see the kids and grandkids will be shorter in a few years.

I've always loved hats, and I love to wear hats. I don't know if my fetish started because I hated my hair or I was always cold ... but I know I feel stylish and "complete" when my outfit includes a hat. I was known for my fedora, and for a few years my license plate carried that name: FEDORA.

I've created a lens about my hat collection - you might find it amusing or at least insightful ...

Although I don't have a closet full of shoes like many ladies, I do have many pairs of BOOTS.

I'm a Squidoo Angel and I spend part of every day looking for great lenses to bless in my assigned Squidoo neighborhoods. It's a great honor to receive a blessing on a lens - this one has been blessed and I'm so thankful to these Squidoo Angels for the "atta girl" on this lens about me.

Blessedmombygrace

I enjoyed my first stint as a Squidoo Angel. This was really fun, and I met lots of new lensmasters. I kept a record of all lenses I blessed during my first Angel tour of duty and will be creating a lens to showcase them. If I've blessed one or more of your lenses during my first term as an angel, or more recently as a neighborhood angel, you are invited to copy the graphic image shown here and use it on your lens.

Right click and save my Squid Angel Blessed graphic to your hard drive, then upload to a text module on your blessed lens. Congrats!