My friends tell me that I'm awesome once you get to know me, which I suppose is the sort of thing you'd like your friends to say about you. But don't just take their word for it.

I'm generally down-to-earth, at least when life demands that I act as an adult, but at heart I'm a dreamer with my head in the clouds. I decided long ago that it was important to find what makes me happy and craft my life accordingly rather than follow the usual rules and expectations.

I have a very strong sense of ethics, compassion and honesty. I believe in the "golden rule", to treat others as you would have them treat you, and to be mindful of the privileges and advantages I have been given in life. Thus I am a political liberal, social libertarian, ethical humanist, civil rights extremist.

If the above sounds stuffy and/or self-righteous, don't worry. I spend much more time making people laugh than ranting. My sense of humor is fairly wide: at times dry, wry or sarcastic, at other times sneaking in word play or dropping obscure pop-cultural, historical, mathematical, musical, etc. references. I'm not above resorting to slapstick in the right situation. Give me a hand puppet and I can keep a 3 year old entertained for hours.

I am an electrical/computer engineer by profession, and I am fortunate to have found a job that suits my professional strengths and personal interests, to work near home with friends on products that I love. I get to work on a variety of interesting and challenging problems, and it feels like I'm doing what I was meant to do professionally.

My passion is music. I am an amateur musician; I have been playing guitar (not necessarily well) for years, and I have recently started playing drums as well. Some friends and I have been playing together as a band for over 6 years, but this is strictly a part time hobby, and nobody entertains delusions of fame and fortune or of quitting their day jobs.

I enjoy strategy games with friends, do a lot of reading, and have a life-long love of baseball.

I'd consider myself very good at engineering, which certainly helps in my career.

I am good at making my friends laugh.

I'm always working to improve my musicianship and songwriting.

New people usually notice that I am shy with people I don't know. This is a bit of a problem in the "first impressions" department.

In such situations, I'm polite (I'm always polite, though) but sometimes come off as aloof due to the shyness.

People are often surprised at the apparent change in my personality once I become more comfortable around them.

This obviously isn't my strong suit. Next questions, please.

I'm quite serious about my musical tastes. Conversely, I don't seem to pay much attention to movies or (especially) TV.

My musical taste can run a bit obscure, and would largely be described as "left of the dial" indie rock, alternative, post-punk with some classic rock tendencies thrown in.

My "desert island" musical picks would be: the Church [I am a hopeless fanboy], the Beatles, Television, Pixies.

Add to that Australian/NZ indie/garage, American power-pop, Canadian power-pop, various classic rock, post punk alternative whatnot, connoisseur Grunge. I could go on and on naming bands, but I won't [this time].

My reading tastes are frankly all over the map. Some favorite authors include Neal Stephenson, Vladimir Nabokov, Lawrence Durrell, Tolkien in the fiction dept. and Stephen Pinker, Douglass Hofstadter, Steven Jay Gould, Bart Ehrman in the nonfiction department.

Smart phone
Music
Guitar pick
My Friends
Something to think about
Cat #1 and #2

On a Friday night I am typically either spending time with friends, playing games, eating, watching horrible movies or just talking, or I am at home playing guitar or drums, practicing, recording, working on songs or just noodling around.

Sometimes I'll just curl up with a book, and sometimes I just end up browsing the internet and wondering where all the time went.