Ok... I'm just recently exiting a period of being at the "oh-crap-I'm-so-dammed-busy-what-the-hell-how-can-it-already-be-4-am-this-crap-was-due-yesterday!" level of busyness... the good news is that period of busyness coincided perfectly with the second-stage booster rockets of my ongoing existential crisis firing. (...wait... that's not good news at all!)
And yes, this was the same existential crisis that motivated me to fly myself across the country at more or less a moment's notice.

None of this should be construed as a complaint -- I'm actually very happy about the existential crisis (it's vastly preferable to stagnation, which is just boring) -- but it is a bit of an apology to anyone who I had started up a conversation with (or who had tried to start one with me) by way of OKC before this landslide of madness hit: I haven't been ignoring you personally, but rather I've been forced to ignore the outside world generally!

Anyway, the rest of this profile is still largely accurate, you just need to add about 4 months of time to all of it. At some point I'll come back here and insert various vague phrases that indicate the passage of time, but that seems like a low priority task at the moment.

- - -

I've just uprooted and transplanted myself to Portland from the east coast; the experience has been... surreal, but satisfying for the most part. I was able to bring my job along with me (I'm a freelance web developer), but importing friends and family has been a little more difficult, so I definitely need to meet some people on this side of the country.

Trying to figure out if I want to stick with this freelancing idea, find myself a "normal" web developer's job (with 9-5 hours and an office and all), or switch gears to something else in a different computer-ish direction.

I'm also trying to enjoy being in a new city, after years of living in a place I couldn't stand.

Being wordy.

I'm a reasonably adept computer programmer (this is a happy coincidence, since it's integral to my job).

I've been told I'm a fairly good teacher, and I consider that a profound compliment. I haven't decided yet if I believe it, but I'd like to think it's true.

For fun, here are some things I'm terrible at:

I'm a catastrophic driver, and have literally sworn off driving for the rest of my life (barring some kind of unforeseen emergency that necessitates a short burst of driving -- like fleeing from a volcano after all my traveling companions have been incinerated by lava... or something).

I have virtually no artistic capacities of any kind. It is unlikely that I could produce even a vaguely passable pencil sketch of a lone orange.

Aside from regular, English-based speech (and dry sarcasm), I can't do anything useful or amusing with my voice: I can't sing, can't impersonate any one or anything, and have no talent for even the most basic accents (be they fake or real -- i.e. even when I'm attempting to speak in a foreign language I will apply an entirely ordinary, day-to-day American-English pattern of inflections and intonations, rendering the words of the foreign language a total insult to any native speakers in the immediate vicinity. This did not improve my grade in high school French classes.)

Books: for the most part I read books about science, technology, and religion / atheism -- it's tough to pick favorites out of that pile, since they're not usually books I plan to read over and over again just for fun.

Movies (in no particular order): The History Boys, The Big Kahuna, Swimming with Sharks, Star Trek: First Contact, American Beauty, Batman Begins, Medicine Man, The Constant Gardener, Vera Drake, Notes on a Scandal, Lord of the Rings (particularly Fellowship of the Ring), The Princess Bride

Music: I'll listen to almost anything, but I tend to get worn out on music pretty quickly, so "favorites" get rotated through a lot.

I've realized that answer has a certain cop-out quality to it (and doesn't give you much to go on if for some reason you wanted to talk to me about music), so here's a random sampling of the artists that are on shuffle right now: Jonathan Coulton, Tenacious D (ehhh... they're kindof on the way out), The Killers, Phish, Dragonforce, Collective Soul, Wolfstone, Matchbox 20, The Republic Tigers, Rush, Scott Walker, Rhapsody of Fire, Antje Duvekot, and Voltaire.

Food: I'm kindof a foodie, so trying new foods is always high on my list. I consistently like sushi, Indian food, and hamburgers of above-average quality.

I'm adding TV: Family Guy, House, Lost (I tried hard to resist getting dragged into Lost... eventually I was overcome when the first 2 seasons were handed to me on DVD), The Simpsons (usually the older the episode, the better), Star Trek: TNG, Survivorman (because Les is cool), Man vs Wild (because Bear is *hysterically* reckless and is certain to eventually be indirectly responsible for someone's death), and various shows in which Gordon Ramsay yells at people

I should list some favorite games too, since I'm going to prattle on about games in another section: Portal, Braid, Zelda: Link to the Past (the high point of the Zelda saga), Super Metroid & Metroid Prime, Kyntt Stories, Warcraft 3, Passage, Dungeon Crawl, Dwarf Fortress, and the original Doom (the best -- and second most important -- thing id software ever made).

- Tea (mostly iced tea, but I drink more than my fair share of hot tea as well)
- A computer with a reasonable internet connection
- Public transportation that doesn't suck (this is about 30% of the reason I moved to Portland)
- Interesting and tasty food
- At least one compelling video / computer game to play
- A comfy chair (you appreciate this a lot more after you spend a week in a new apartment without any chairs...)

(I'm sure I'll have to come back to this section eventually, but here's a start -- probably a start that scares away droves of people...)

- Universal health care: I think the fact that we don't provide universal health care in the US single-handedly disqualifies us from the list of civilized nations in the modern world

- Religion: In particular, I'm trying to decide if I think any religions are (or can be), on the balance, positive, or not. I'm leaning towards "not" currently.

- Technology: I think the pace of technological advancement is slower than it should be -- I blame this on mediocre education, poor resource allocation, and sometimes nonsensical pseudo-moral crap. The other half of this is that I delight in technology, and while I wouldn't argue that every piece of technology humanity has ever created has been a "good thing" on its own, I do think every technological advance can at least be the basis for something that eventually improves our quality of life

- Video games: I think it will seem like this is "the one that doesn't belong", but I find games fascinating, especially now, since they are going through a difficult and complicated transition to being a recognized, viable creative and artistic medium

Sometimes at home, wasting time (or maybe even being productive) on my computer, other times out grabbing food and / or taking up space at a coffee shop.

I'm not really all that into privacy, but I can't really think of anything that I could list here that wouldn't just be mundane (or pointlessly offensive).

If there's some pressing, seemingly private thing you want to know, drop me a message and you'll probably get an answer.

You want to agree about, talk about, or argue about any of the things I mentioned in the "I spend a lot of time thinking about" section (or anything you think might be somehow related), or you're looking for someone to futz around Portland with.

You can also just message me for shits and giggles.