I've spent the better half of the last year traveling across the country, and found myself back in Florida for a time. There's so many places left to see, explore, to become part of, and picking just one is an impossible choice.

In college I studied everything from ocean kayaking to online business entrepreneurship, and enjoyed most all of it. Four different schools over as many years, and at the end of the day what I've learned is that the important thing is to find interesting people who help expand your own boundaries.

Traveling, seeking, and trying to find the meaning to life, the universe, and everything. Snow has its merits, as do the sandy beaches of a Gulf island. Happiness comes in strange places, in moments of freedom.

I'm not sure where I'm headed to next. Some people have epiphanies complete with lights from above and announcer voices, telling them in bold-font words exactly what they should do for the rest of their life. Somehow that's never happened to me. Seems to me though, that the more places one lives, people one knows, jobs one works, and experiences one has, the better a person you become. Staying in one place, with one job until retirement may be ideal for some people, but I can't live with the question of "what might have been".

Solving problems, coming up with odd trivia, navigating unfamiliar places, defeating zombie outbreaks. I can probably manage about half of Heinlein's anti-specialization list. When tired I can fall asleep almost anywhere, within minutes. I'm reasonably well versed in dealing with soulless bureaucracies, and British corporations (while sometimes hard to distinguish, there are supposedly a few differences between the two). Cats and dogs seem to give me favorable reviews in the petting, feeding, walking, and lap-providing departments, although I haven't had any of my own in some time.

Objection! You're asking the witness to speculate, Your Honor.

This is honestly a question I've never really considered, nor have I ever asked anyone "What was the first thought that popped into your head when we first met?" Who asks that question? I guess we would all hope for a positive answer, but y'know, everyone notices different things. Trying to remember faces is tough for me, but a knowing laugh, a guilty smile, an ironic t-shirt - those last far longer than the mundane "height, weight, eye color, blood type" witness-for-the-prosecution details.

People have been known to comment on the color of my eyes, and their shade of blue; let me know if you find it true.

Books:

Dune; Armor; The Great Shark Hunt; Neuromancer; Collapse; Desert Solitare; Passage At Arms; Desert Solitaire; Childhood's End; Watchmen; Hammer's Slammers; The Stars My Destination; Solaris; The WOW Guide to Utah Canyon Country; The Dogs of War; Day of the Jackal; Blue Highways; Guns, Germs, & Steel; 1984; Redliners; I,Q; To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth; Catch-22; Slaughterhouse-Five; The Humanoids; Starship Troopers; Cat's Cradle.

Movies:

Blade Runner, The Usual Suspects, The Matrix, Star Wars, Syriana, Unforgiven, Galaxy Quest, Platoon, The Man With No Name Trilogy, Casino Royale, Collateral, Heat, Primer, Apocalypse Now, The Last Valley, The Train, Gran Torino, Fight Club, Cowboy Bebop, Casablanca, Blazing Saddles, The Thing, Crank, Paths of Glory, Super Troopers, Cross of Iron, Tremors, Memento, Inception, The Maltese Falcon, Aliens, The Usual Suspects, Koyaanisqatsi, Monty Python, Cowboy Bebop, 12 Angry Men, Gladiator, A Fistful of Dynamite, Revolver

Music:

Classical (Khachaturian, Prokofiev, Debussy, Wagner, Barber, Tchaikovsky, Holst, etc), Pink Floyd, Metallica, Bear McCreary, Ennio Morricone, The Faunts, The Seatbelts, Miles Davis, Scala, Terje Rypdal, Jeremy Soule, Hans Zimmer, Nick Drake, Led Zeppelin, Iron Maiden, Incubus, Alice in Chains, Frank Klepacki, The Beatles, Ghinzu, Deftones, Moby, Muse, The Mars Volta

Food:

The edible kind. And PEZ. I'll try almost anything once (including raw whole octupii), with few caveats, but at the end of the day I like simple stuff: good pizza, Thai meals, Chinese take-out, a homecooked burger, paella, etc. All of the Mountain Dew flavors except the original. Kinder chocolate. Chocolate-dipped popcorn, and waffle-cooked cookies. CoCo Joe's Italian Water Ice. MREs.

Friends
Books
An internet-connected computer (preferably one with a faster connection than this stupid sub-56k)
MacGuyver-tools in my pockets
Music
Cargo pants

*I should also note that I'm quite fond of oxygen, clean liquid water, sufficient daily caloric intake, and warm shelter. We live in a rare and lucky society where these things are a given, and often forget just how precious it is to wake up every day without worrying whether we'll die from starvation, disease, hypothermia, or giant mutated woolly mammoths.

People, history, nature, politics, morality, pants, the future, reality, art, applied ballistics, cats, good literature, food. What the nature of good and evil really is. What it means to have honor. Where happiness comes from, and what it's made of. How we define time, and whether it matters. What the world is going to look like in another century or two. Why George Lucas should never be allowed near a movie camera again.

completely without any definition of "typical Friday night" by now. Could be out for a night on the town, or in a tent on the side of a mountain. Either is an acceptable answer...or just spending the evening inside with a good book. Clubbing isn't really my thing, but I've still been known to go every once in a while with friends.

I can be pretty bad about picking up on signals directed my way. It's my own personal blind spot, so be direct. ;)

Also, I'm not a huge fan of being underwater. Air is a great thing, and highly underrated.

You'd like to hang out, share a good beer, go hiking, debate politics, conduct People of Wal-Mart research expeditions, build model rockets of ambiguous legality in the backyard, cuddle, plan invasions, go shopping for used books, practice zombie Mozambique drills, or invent new ways to disturb the populace.

If you own a kayak and want to go kayaking, message me! Freshwater, saltwater, unoccupied swimming pools...I'm always up for getting out on the water and exploring new places around central Florida.

There is one question that must be answered first though...what is the best flavor of Runts?