I am above all a passionate person. When I get into something, I get very into it, often to a fault, but that is who I am.

I love teaching, music, politics, socializing, Africa, baseball, the mountains, reading....

I am definitely more than a little nerdy: I think about and read about current events, history, religion, philosophy, economics and politics a lot. I am a teacher and a social scientist at heart, and it is definitely a big part of who I am -- but so are my love of music and (to a lesser extent) sports.

When my father's side of my -- big, Irish -- family gets together we talk a lot about 'the world' (current events, culture, politics etc.) and we tell 'Tall (Irish) Tales'. When my mother's side of the family gets together, we never talk about the world -- we talk about ourselves, our lives and each other, and we can get more than a little (Irish-style) crazy, if you know what I mean...

I fit in well with both sides of the family, even if I err towards my father's :)

I enjoy going to crazy corners of the world and doing things other people think are sort of ridiculous -- and learning about things most people know nothing about. But I am settling down on that front as I get older :) Seeing the gorillas in Rwanda and watching the wildebeest migrations in the Serengeti were two of my best recent adventures.

About to start teaching college students...

procrastinating, teaching, traveling, seeing the good in people, speaking Swahili, practicing dhikr, talking, remembering unimportant things, making popcorn, converting people to Bruce Springsteen fandom, giving tours of ethnic neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens, being a good Mets fan

It used to be my big Afro, but now I don't know, probably my smile or that I do not have a lot of muscles

Novels: A Prayer for Owen Meany, The Grapes of Wrath, The Fountainhead, Time and Again

Non-fiction: The Economist weekly, NY Times daily, books on religion & spirituality, history and politics

TV: Six Feet Under, 30 Rock, Lost, Mad Men, Family Guy, Arrested Development, The Wire, Parenthood, Shameless, Law and Order, Frasier

Movies: Empire Strikes Back, The Natural, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Good Will Hunting, Shakespeare in Love, The Godfather Part II, Lost in Translation, The Notebook, Field of Dreams, Chocolat

Music: Bruce Springsteen, Gillian Welch, The Rolling Stones, Johnny Cash, Mumford and Sons, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, A Tribe Called Quest, Arcade Fire, Led Zeppelin, Dave Matthews, U2, Neil Young, Wilco, The Smiths, The Beatles, Tom Morello, Motown, Joni Mitchell, The Fugees, Pearl Jam, Eddie Vedder, The Wailin' Jennys, Simon and Garfunkel, Oliver Mtukudzi, Portishead, Les Miserables, Miles Davis, The Cure, Sia, Taylor Swift, Tracy Chapman, Miles Davis, Gladys Night, The Indigo Girls, The JPC, The Who, Habib Koite, Metallica, Coltrane ....the list goes on....

music
family
close friends
books
access to nature
access to 'culture'

The Big Questions: meaning of life, spirituality, love, loss
Politics, history and current events
Music, my next concert, where I will find that new record I am looking for ...
My family
My friends

I wear my heart on my sleeve

I have seen Bruce Springsteen in concert far more times than I generally admit to people I do not know well

You are kind, caring, intellectually curious, and think we would get along for some reason

You are ambitious in the sense that you pursue something passionately in life, but you want balance and think that there are more important things in life than career and 'worldly success'

You think it is fine for a guy to be both a die-hard baseball fan and an occasional sap for sentimental and/or emotional books,
movies, music etc.

You like either Bruce, Africa, or politics

You like to travel to both great cities (New York, Paris, Tokyo, Istanbul, whatever) and far-off-the-radar locales (the Serengeti, the Sahel, the Amazon, etc.).