Well, hell. How do you summarize a person? Especially one's self.

I don't smoke or drink, my brain is full of randomness, and I love to listen to loud music, but I switch genres all the time. I race sailboats for fun. I sunburn very easily, so I'll always have a bottle of sunscreen on hand. I love to travel, but driving fries my brain, so I don't drive more than a few hours at a time if I can help it. Oh, and I like hugs, but I suspect everyone does.

I have a sharp sense of humor and a blunt sort of honesty. That doesn't mean I stab people with jokes, or club them with facts. It just means I say what I mean (and am confused by people who don't), I mean what I say (likewise), and I find things to laugh at in *everything* (myself included).

I'm a software engineer. It interests me, pays well and I still learn new things all the time. (This is important to me; my brain is always running, and I get bored easily.) I've been doing this for 8 years, and things have progressed nicely for me.

Intellectually, I am a do-it-your-selfer. Courses and books don't really do it for me, at least not by themselves: I'm a hands-on sort of guy. The only computer-related class I ever took was typing; everything else is self taught. And they pay me for doing what I love, so I must be doing something right.

On the side, I'm also learning to be a DJ. My friends tell me I'm pretty good, but every time I spin a set, I always find things I can do better. I haven't ever done that professionally, but it's a great hobby.

Bringing order to a world of chaos. Bringing chaos to a world of order. Enjoying life. Taking photos. Geeking out. Sailing. Reading science fiction. Communicating (or so people tell me). Being sarcastic. Watching movies and cartoons. Wearing ridiculous fuzzy slippers. Playing 7 idlerpg games at once. Taking bubble baths. Racking up google hits for my name. Cooking fried rice in a wok. Stomping around in puddles, wearing oversized rubber boots.

I'm not organized enough to have a full list of favorites. But here are some which come to mind:

Books: Dune, Foundation, the Dark Tower series, The Hitchhikers Guide series, Cryptonomicon, 2001/2010/2061, especially 2061.

Movies: The Gods Must Be Crazy, Dogma, Mars Attacks, Prophecy (the whole trilogy), the Chronicles of Riddick, the Usual Suspects, Solyaris (the old Russian version), the Hunt for Red October, the Day of the Triffids, etc. Too many others to name. There is no spoon. Don't run, we are your friends. Even the eyes and brain went, with a horrible schlupping sound. ¡No Hay Banda!

Music: Genres, techno, psytrance, hiphop, spanish guitars, opera, lounge, goth, cheese, reggae, eurodance, downtempo. Groups, Shpongle, Gipsy Kings, Orbital, Pharcyde, Diary of Dreams, Armin van Buuren, Jamiroquai, Front 242, Kruder and Dorfmeister, Nirvana, Cafe del Mar, Nightmares on Wax, Juno Reactor, 10 Foot Ganja Plant, Morcheeba, Toots and the Maytals, Deep Dance, Paco de Lucia, Thievery Corporation, Lemon Jelly, Underworld, Gotan Project, Younger Brother, Kikck Bong, Kaya Project to name a few. Kompressor break your glowstick, kompressor eat your candy. You're face to face with the man who sold the world.

Food: sushi, cheeseburgers, fajitas, pizza, nachos (preferably homemade) and thai fried rice most of all. I make my own pico de gallo and guacamole (yum!). I also like any kind of food that I can put gummy bears on. And I love to try new things.

No, I haven't tried putting gummy bears on nachos. Are you crazy?

Sailing! Music! Sillyness! My car! Hot sauce! My thinkpad!

Random things. Sometimes day to day things, sometimes philosophical stuff. ("Philosophical" sounds so much more sophisticated than "irrelevant" does, don't you think?) What I want to be if I grow up. How I can make a sailboat go faster. How I can make a program run faster. What I want to try next. (Scuba diving! Hang gliding!) How there's often so much beauty in simplicity. (And in nature. And in situations. And in mathematics. And in nothingness.)

I'm usually thinking about things I'm looking forward to... going out to eat with friends, racing sailboats, going over to my mom's place for a surprise hug... anything really. As long as I have something fun to look forward to, I'm a happy camper.

As you'd expect after noticing my career choice, I tend to be pretty analytical. So I spend a lot of time thinking about myself, too. Why I do the things I do, why I don't do the things I don't, who I am, what I am, what I want, what I want to do, what I want to be, who I want to be, that kind of thing.

Seems like I keep having to learn certain lessons over and over again, which seems pretty silly. One of these lessons, something I'm getting better and better at (but slowly), is JFDI. If I can't decide whether to do something, I'll give up on the whole indecisiveness thing, and Just F... Do It. You should try it, it works great.

Listening to loud music, playing video games, cooking myself some spaghetti and garlic bread or fried rice or something, goofing off on IRC, spinning music, or watching a movie. Usually, two or more of those simultaneously.

I'm a pretty normal guy. I don't kill or rape or rob people, or any of those other nasty things you hear about in the news. From that perspective, I'm pretty boring, but I think that's actually a good thing. Even if it means I don't stand out in a crowd the way outlaw bikers and robot pirate monkeys do. So I won't apologise for being normal.

...you feel like it. Go on, I won't bite.