I'm a recent triumphant returnee to Boston, after half a lifetime away. San Francisco where I started and buried an internet company and renovated a house (extra points if you really like hanging drywall, or building retaining walls :) ). A hiatus in DC, where I studied technology-driven economic innovation policy. Southern Japan before all of that, where I lived in a tiny rice farming town.

I'm loyal to a fault, and would go pretty far for the people I care about. I'm really close to my family, though it's small and scattered around the world. Compassion goes far with me, whether for friends, family, small children or cute farm animals. I'm kind of ideologically opposed to long paragraphs.

When I lived on the west coast I thought of myself as a disenfranchised east-coaster. Now east-coasters say I'm like a west-coaster (though I hope w/o the vagueness in planning). I like to think I've internalized the best of both...

I'm nice to spiders (almost always). And most bugs.

I compost. Because, dammit, fruits & vegetables deserve a second chance.

I try not take myself too seriously. It often works.

To keep myself off the streets for 8 hours a day I work as a software guy. Which I like to describe disparagingly, but I secretly love. I pretty much get to build things and figure out how to fix problems all day and work with the least serious group of smart people I've ever worked with. And all the organic fruit I can eat. And a pool table.

In my prior life I worked as a technology policy analyst. I wrote an unfortunately large amount about robots. I'm much happier under the current scenario.

When I'm not coding stuff and writing about robots, I have a serious standing Saturday commitment at a soup kitchen in Cambridge.

I also do the regular stuff that everyone does to keep their lives from melting down into unsalvageable puddles of unhappiness. I run, snowboard, backpack, swim, make time for friends, see shows, sometimes meditate, generally try to maintain a semblance of something approximating balance in my life.

I'm working at carving out more time for sculptural welding. I *really* want to learn to surf. I'd also like to learn Mandarin and Spanish...

I'm looking forward to re-discovering Boston, Massachusetts and New England this summer. Mass MoCA, Random swimming quarries in Vermont, possibly Quebec City would all be very cool. Maybe with you?

I pride myself on being a good listener. I'm a good speller. I read. I throw a mean dinner party. I’m incessantly curious. I've got a wicked sense of humor. I like taking things apart and figuring them out. I make an impressive Kale pesto, and I even enjoy doing the dishes. If I really like you I'll cook dinner, tune up your bike and fix the electric outlet that doesn't quite work :)

A haunting sense of abundant energy... And my aquiline profile ;)

Some highly appreciated books:
Wallace Stegner:Angle of Repose, Colson Whitehead: The Intuitionist, Wuthering Heights, Tintin: Cigars of the Pharoah, Persepolis, Amos Elon:The Pity of it All

Movies:
I *REALLY* like Kurosawa, and Ozu: High and Low, Rashomon, Hidden Fortress, Tokyo Story: Miyazaki: Spirited Away, Tonari no Tottoro

Some others I can watch over and over: Amores Perros, Shallow Grave, PunchDrunk Love, Jacob's Ladder, Ajami, Il Postino, Closer, Gosford Park, Being John Malkovich. Fassbinder. And sometimes, when I need to remember that there's not supposed to be a purpose to it all, Woody Allen's Whatever Works.

Art:
Anish Kapoor's Marsyas-A very cool installation filling the entire Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern in London a few years ago. Very large. Very red. Lucian Freud, Giacometti.

Architects:
Breuer, Louis Kahn, Richard Neutra. And sometimes, even the much maligned Paul Rudolph (http://bit.ly/14a56i1)

Music:
Always shifting, but a few currently in heavy rotation:
Thao Ngyuen (w or w/o the Get Down Stay Down), Beirut, Beta Band, Veruca Salt's hauntingly beautiful cover of NWA's "Straight Outa Compton," Kanye, Broken Social Scene, Velvet Underground. Etc.

Hmm, I'm really pretty flexible. That said:

Petrichor.

THIS bakery in San Francisco: http://www.arizmendibakery.org/

Verdant, copious quantities of nature.

Japanese persimmons.

Spotting John Malcovich in random locations in Cambridge (on the T, Harvard Sq etc).

My bikes. They get me everywhere w/o parking hassles.

Good dark chocolate. Preferably Valrhona or Scharfenberger > or = 72%.

Venn diagrams.

And, at the very real risk of being platitudinous:
Family/Friends.
Hope.
Curiousity.
Intelligent conversation.

Recently, what to put in this profile.

Why someone on OKC would change their status to "I'm married now" ? Okay, not *a lot* of time on this one. But, still.

How excited I am that orange is back in a *major* way.

Trying to stay in the present and not to think too much

I scored the maid of honor (dglm) on the okC dating persona test. Hmm...

I don't always get 5 servings of fruits and vegetables.

I might not really have an aqualine profile.

A healthy dose of kindness and introspection, together with an abiding sense of curiosity about your own intentions are really attractive to me. Politically progressive, way more to the left than the right, but sensible about it. You're not afraid to challenge me.

An intense love for your tv will make me jealous, a passionate love for being active and the outdoors in general would be nice. An appreciation for design and aesthetics would be great.

You think this is funny, in which case we'll probably get along: http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/13-simple-steps-to-get-you-through-a-rough-day

Intelligence combined with a slightly irreverent sense of humor is really sexy ;)

You have a list of places you want to travel to that's longer than you'll ever possibly be able to manage and you think it'd be fun to have someone to plan it with

You don't have any pictures of you with stormtroopers in your profile (sorry, this one's really a deal-killer)

You're curious enough to figure out my user name (though far from any kind of requirement)...