In short, I am:
- Optimistic and cynical ("Scratch any cynic and you will find a disappointed idealist" a wise man once said.)
- Kinetic but relaxed
- Recklessly honest yet kind
- Outdoorsy much of the time and indoorsy the rest
(Despite what my pictures might lead you to believe, I do live in a place with walls and a roof... then again, sometimes not)
- Plenty cultured but not what you'd call urbane
- Complex and uncomplicated
- Playfully antagonistic and generally facetious
- One of those mildly idealistic, quasi-socialistic, happily minimalistic, tree-hugging, do-gooder types
- A traveler (in the real and not just wishful sense) and amateur photographer
- Hoping for something, waiting for nothing

Some favorite things:
Epic landscapes, long walks (perhaps a few miles, perhaps a few days), sharing morning coffee and a crossword, lazy Saturdays whiled away on the patio of the local diner/coffeeshop, the smell of campfire smoke lingering in clothes the next day, the sound of a loon's call piercing the blackness of night as you drift off to sleep in your tent next to a lake (a fond memory)...

Broadly speaking but also to be very accurate I'm an ecologist of the nomadic variety. Folks pay me to go out into the wild places to gather data about this and that and bring it back. I spend the vast majority of my work days in the field and it's awesome. To facilitate my work and adventures I have to move a few times each year to new places and new jobs as the seasons change. Science for the mind, hard work for the body, and nature for the soul. Plus, how can you beat the fact that your work clothes invariably include hiking boots and a backpack? Recently moved back to Las Vegas to return to desert tortoise population monitoring. In a couple of months, I'll be somewhere else doing something else.

Someday I may get the stupid idea back in my head to go to grad school, climb the ladder, and get settled into a more traditionally stable lifestyle. However, until I find a sufficiently compelling reason to stay put (most likely someone to stay for) I'll continue to savor the joys and freedoms of a nomad. Really, the only drawback that I've found is that I can't adopt a dog. :(

Non-professionally, I'm an increasingly outraged but to-date inactive activist, wondering if someday my outrage will overwhelm good sense and I will be able to dedicate myself to fighting for what's right, perhaps plunging even deeper into a lifestyle of asceticism (by American standards of course) than I already have. Until then, I'm an aware but still happy and well-adjusted contributor to society, doing my best to enjoy life while minimizing the social and environmental scars that my lifestyle leaves on the world.

- SCIENCE!
- Taking pretty pictures
- Cooking (often trying some new recipe or experimenting with an ever-increasing rate of success)
- Being a good house guest (nearly invisible)
- Yoga (not really, but it seems like it because I'm pretty flexible)
- Falling asleep really fast (screensaver will engage in 5.4.3...zzz)

Maybe they notice that I don't talk a lot. It usually takes me a while to warm up to most people unless we have something awesome in common or they somehow skip the typical icebreaker stuff and start a thoughtful conversation right off the bat. Rare but it does happen. Why don't I start the thoughtful conversation, you might ask. Because I'm shy of course.

Books: I don't read as much as I would like but... The Omnivore's Dilemma, Natural Capitalism, A Short History of Nearly Everything, The God of Small Things, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Siddhartha, 1984, One Hundred Years of Solitude, In a Sunburned Country, Interpreter of Maladies, Bonk, Ender's Game, I Am Legend, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Cadillac Desert, The Lord of the Rings and like any environmentalist worth their reusable shopping bags I have to give props to Dr. Seuss for The Lorax. I'm not snobby or immune to popular fiction though so let us also recognize such fun reads as The Hunger Games, and Harry Potter

TV: Hmm... I like Jeopardy. Sometimes I'll watch a series via Netflix, recently Heroes, and occasionally I'll watch The Daily Show online. In general though, most TV is garbage.

Movies: The Constant Gardener, Life as a House, The Science of Sleep, American Beauty, What Dreams May Come, Wall-E, Howl's Moving Castle, Say Anything, Predator, Serenity, Amadeus, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Labyrinth are some favorites. I'm a sucker for romances actually, perhaps to my own detriment in this life of prolonged singledom. Because I'm a sap like that, I have to list Love Actually which by evidence of play count might be my favorite movie of all time. It's battling You've Got Mail for top spot. Sad but true.

Music: Oh, a mixture of all kinds of stuff really... Tribe Called Quest, Lord Huron, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Passion Pit, Morcheeba, Thievery Corporation, Phoenix, Bon Iver, Sound Tribe Sector 9, Massive Attack, Fat Freddy's Drop, John Lee Hooker, Built to Spill, The Velvet Underground, Jurassic 5, Lotus, Four Tet, The Clash, Spoon, Gogol Bordello, Wilco, Sigur Rós, Rilo Kiley, Mazzy Star, Cake, Norah Jones, Beck, Radiohead, M. Ward, Ratatat, Toots and the Maytals, The Flaming Lips, TOOL, Bonobo.

Food: 97.2% vegetarian, 2.6% pescatarian, and 0.2% opportunistic meativore. I mostly only break vegetarianism to try new foods or if soomething is otherwise going to go to waste. I'm especially fond of spicy "ethnic" foods like Thai and Indian. Cajun and Creole foods hold another special place in my heart. If Eggs Benedict is on the menu, you can bet that that's what I'm getting. Also, a good pizza has few peers in the world of gastronomy especially when accompanied by a good beer.

- Warmth
- Sunlight
- Greenness
- Open spaces
- Traveling
- Adventures

...all the places that I'd like to go and wonders I've yet to see.

...how complex and amazing the world is and how we are both great and insignificant in it.

...what the hell is wrong with people and why do they feel the need to cause so much trouble when everyone could live so much more easily and happily in a state of cooperative peace.

...what my next job might be and where it will take me (it'd be nice to go international someday)

...politics, how screwed up things have gotten, and if things weren't always like this or if I'm just more aware of it now

...ways minimize the material things in my life to the simple, necessary, and portable as well as combat consumerism in general (It is a point of pride as well as necessity for me that pretty much all my worldy possessions fit neatly into my small car.)

...how time seems to slow when you're always moving and changing, to the point where you forget how old you are and a few years ago can seem like a different lifetime

... usually watching the latest arrival from Netflix, reading a book, playing video games (Yeah, I just said that... Love it or get over it.), or packing for a little trek into the mountains/desert/other.

Depending on where I am and how cool the people around me are, I have varying degrees of a social life, from some to none. I do enjoy going to dinner, drinking with friends, house parties, dancing ... all the usual stuff, but it's all highly dependent on the people. Bottom-line, if I enjoy someone's company, I hang out with them but I don't force myself to be social for its own sake. Yes, yes, classic introvert, blah-blah. :)

I'm probably a fair bit nerdier than you've guessed.

...you're brave, active, reliable, intelligent, selfless, humble, beautiful, conscientious, adventurous, caring, and unfettered... or at least some of those things because nobody is perfect...

Being almost perpetually new in town I'm always looking for someone fun to hang out with locally but also passively searching for someone who might be something more.

Please don't be offended if it takes me some time to get back to you. Sometimes I'm away from internet for days, even weeks, at a time.