I study primitive living skills, kung fu, and Go.

Also, I recently started exploring aspects of permaculture/homesteading

My life these days basically revolves around the following: Attempting to make fire, foraging for food and medicine, and working on projects that make those two activities easier.

I'm in the beginning stages of constructing a 'primitive' cabin in the western foothills of the Cascades.

Foraging for wild edibles and medicines. Attempting to make fire by friction using various combinations of wood. Making bows for fall deer hunting. Walking lightly, attempting to minimize my ecological footprint.

I work part-time as a software engineer/architect, but I am in the process of transitioning to a more simple life.

Studying an internal style of kung-fu, Bagua Zhang.

Abstract Algebra
Bagua Zhang
Go
slowing down
matching syllables/freestyling
Walking

My hair, then my beard, then my laugh.

Presumably, in that order.

Books:
The Wandering Taoist, The Circus of Dr. Lao, Algebra (by Saunders Mac Lane), Snow Crash, Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go, The $50 and Up Underground House Book, Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times, Bushcraft by Mors Kochanski

Music:
These are some of my all-time favorites, Check them out.
The Dirty Three (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6mkjocat84)
Skeleton$ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRFwoSX3LOY)
Silas Blak (http://concuss.bandcamp.com/track/black-cop)
Homeboy Sandman (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhe-eYHQgXA)
Pharoahe Monche (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9JH0Xz8_eY)

Nasuga - my canine companion.
healthy and ethically foraged/harvested/grown food
Music, the kind that endures. Music that elicits deep feelings from within, music that challenges and expands my interpretation of what is...
Occasional Solitude
Trees

Getting off the grid
How to improve my awareness
Native plants and their uses
Fire
Homesteading
Mathematics (Categories and how they can be used to relate various domains to one another)
Syllables and Word play
Paradoxes
Zero and Infinity
Fishing/Hunting

Am I self-sufficient? Self-sustaining? Having a minimal impact on my surroundings? If not, what do I need to do to make myself so

Up in the mountains working on my cabin and wrestling with my dog.

Cooking.

Down in Olympia working on my friends cabin and forging knives.

I was born with six fingers on my left hand.

I've never shaved, ever.

Any of the following sound interesting.
* getting out and harvesting then eating some wild edibles
* helping to design a garden
* going backpacking/camping
* learning some primitive living skills (friction fire, cordage, shelters)
* working on some craft projects (basketry, mocassins, woodcraft, etc)

Or if you want to meet up for tea or a beer and talk about life.