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I am the chill that runs up your spine! I am the plot twist in the second reel! I am... (Wait—You can't trick me that easily! Superheroes have to be careful, you know.)

Instead, I'll describe my mild-mannered, but still dichotomous cover persona.

I'm fiercely intellectual, but appreciate the basic senses. Education is very important to me, yet I'm the first in three generations without a graduate degree. I'm an athletic geek.

Now let me step right in here and stop myself. We all get the dichotomy, and needn't be coddled. Yes? OK. (See how useful an imaginary alter ego can be?)

Back to the banally illuminating exposition. I'm interested in a great many things, and I always enjoy learning new ideas and skills. I drive really fast around a race track and I hack on computers. (I teach the former.) I've been fascinated by astronomy, photography, and music for as long as I can remember. And even better, I enjoy a good, ponderous slacking. Or I'd love to hear your thoughts on the latest discoveries in cosmology. Your choice.

I'm tall and fit, and I enjoy bicycling and inline skating. Want to strap on a pair of skates and zip around a park with me? Or maybe we could hit a salsa club.

I'm fairly social; I enjoy a good party. I love hanging out with anyone I can learn something from. But I also love sharing my knowledge and experience. I had a fantastic time at raves, back when those were still a thing. The coffee shop atmosphere (you know, the kind where they have big, squishy chairs and poetry nights) can be quite enjoyable, too.

I'm a Mac user. I think all heroes, super or not, are. Haven't you noticed that in the movies?

I've been lucky enough to work on a project that's sent me around the world--generally central and eastern Europe, but once even central Asia. It's been interesting talking with folks in other countries about their opinions of the US government and people (fortunately, completely distinct to most people!) as we've gone through some substantial changes in the past six years.

I've been adding to my music, movie, and book collections faster than I can keep up with consuming them. This makes me both happy and sad.

I've been keeping active and outdoors this summer. For instance, I biked a century in the MS Bike Ride to help in the fight against multiple sclerosis.

Driving. I race, and I instruct high performance driving at a nearby race track. I'm also proficient at photography, although I'm stronger with the technical aspects, and I have to concentrate on composition. I'm an excellent geek, but not the socially inept kind. I can fix almost anything. I'm very good with my hands.

I'm half good at a whole lot of things, like playing guitar and flute (and, by extension, many other woodwinds), singing, home construction projects (I'm building a room in my basement right now), naming stars in the night sky, and growing plants.

I am friendly and inviting and almost always smiling. People strike up conversations with me in supermarket checkout lines, which people tell me is unusual.

I love Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. I also really enjoy the works of Douglas R. Hofstadter, Neal Stephenson, Orson Scott Card, Charles Scheffield, William Gibson, and Julian May. And many others. I think I may read The Selfish Gene next. I also enjoy books of photography, particularly black and white and figure studies. To indulge my geekier side, I'll have a different book for the moment. Right now, it's the Ruby Cookbook.

My favorite movies are the ones that leave me thinking about them for a long time afterward, like Memento, Blade Runner, and Being John Malkovich. I also enjoy a good mood-evoking movie, like Lost In Translation. Miyazaki's movies are fantastic. But I also enjoy just plain fun movies, like Real Genius, Men In Black, Galaxy Quest, and Hackers. I was recently very impressed by Stranger Than Fiction.

I hope I can never easily pin down my favorite music. I like techno (trance, gabber, d&b), Gregorian chants, industrial, Tull, Imogen Heap, BT, Massive Attack, Zero 7, and on and on.

Although I could probably eat Thai every day, I try to have as wide a variety of food as possible. You'll catch me eating Indian, sushi, Tex-Mex (I make a mean margarita), Italian, Szechuan, and who knows what else on a nearly weekly basis. I'm also lucky enough to have some friends who are real foodies, which helps me expand my palate even further.

Language, music, friends, a camera, great food, and someone to share it all with.

Renting my house put and moving into DC proper. Of course, I really want to trim down my belongings to a more manageable volume, first. I'm working on that; I've got one room full of the stuff I'm giving away. It's a big room.

I also like to think about what great physics or cosmology problem I can solve to advance human understanding of the universe. I think I have one, but I don't have any idea how to solve it, yet. But then, if it were easy... Perhaps I need to shift gears and go back to school to become an astrophysicist.

Sometimes I'll be at a salsa dance. Sometimes I'll be hanging out with friends; having dinner, watching a movie, or rolling the Katamari. Sometimes I'll be working on my house. Or maybe I'll be partying at a club. Or several of these at the same time, of course. :)

You like who you are. You think finding yourself on some unfamiliar road is an opportunity, not a sign you're lost.

You enjoy a good, intelligent conversation. Or just relaxed hanging out. Maybe you enjoy a nice drive through winding country roads. Or perhaps you'd like to go somewhere and shoot some photos.

However, if you've posted no pictures and answered no questions, I likely won't write back. I know. Life's just unfair.