Issuing supreme power to you...one moment.

My self-summary Propose an edit

i was born and raised in north carolina and it will always be home. i moved to the washington dc area in the spring of 2008. it's not north carolina, but it is close enough for government work.

actually, i don't work for the government. i'm a website manager/designer for a small conservative non-profit group that focuses on government accountability and transparency. i agree with them on the theory, but not necessarily the issues that we actually focus on.

i may never go back to school, but the only career that i'll ever really have is that of life-long student. i'm always reading and learning about things that interest me including anthropology, history, evolutionary genetics, world religions, personal religion, particle physics, cosmology, quantum physics, general and specific relativity, computer programming, existence, metaphysics, the meaning of 'self', current and future technology, cognitive science, morality and ethics, political systems, the nature of emotions, and plenty more.

i'm a southerner with no accent. i love both the mountains and big cities. i have a degree in physics that isn't relevant to the job i get paid for, and probably won't ever be. i'm opinionated, open-minded, all over the political spectrum though it is easiest (but still inaccurate) to call me a libertarian. i believe the only person who is responsible for taking care of you is you, but also believe that if you have the ability, you should help other people. i'm a pretty mellow person. not much gets me upset other than other people behaving stupidly. i'm a former christian with a deep affinitiy for the abrahamic religions. i'm not an atheist, but a deist -- i believe in a creator god that is a non-interventionist observer, and i'm ok with that. i think it doesn't matter if you believe in a god or not so long as you lead a moral life. i believe that morality is based in objective truths, derived from necessity via human and societal evolution and our understanding of the world around us.

i live in a state of ordered chaos.

my blog is grok life. extra points if you grok grok

aim/yahoo/skype = spkr4thedead51, googletalk = bornyesterday

What I'm doing with my life Propose an edit

living it, to the best of my ability

aside from my job, i go swing dancing every few weeks, when it's warm i play ultimate frisbee and kickball on the national mall on the weekends, and take krav maga lessons two or three times a week.

i greatly enjoy crashing on the recliner with a book and listening to records or watching recorded tv shows/movies, drinking mead and snacking on cheese and crackers and otherwise filling a lazy afternoon or evening. i love playing board games -- i'll kick your ass at trivial pursuit and settlers of cataan -- and going to concerts/shows

things i would like to do? live in new zealand, travel around europe for a year or more, hike the appalachian trail, make someone very happy to be with me

in the end, whether i complete any of those goals, as long as i am able to enjoy my life and to be happy and satisfied with what i've done with it, i will be able to consider my life a success

I'm really good at Propose an edit

thinking outside of the box, making bad jokes, reading, learning

gentrification

The first thing(s) people usually notice about me Propose an edit

i'm skinny. or that i look quite young. to be honest, this is something i often wonder about.

My favorite books, movies, music, and food Propose an edit

A) the abbreviated list - a canticle for leibowitz, frank m. miller, jr; lord of the rings, tolkien; the riverworld saga, philip jose farmer; anything by robert heinlein; hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, douglas adams; the stars my destination, alfred bester; heart of darkness, joseph conrad; the ender's game and shadow series, orson scott card; alice in wonderland and through the looking glass, lewis carroll; anything by philip k. dick; neuromancer, william gibson; dead souls, nikolai gogol; catch 22; the sword of truth series, terry goodkind; dune, frank herbert; brave new world, aldous huxley; the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe, c.s. lewis; the picture of dorian gray, oscar wilde; 1984 and animal farm, george orwell; the song of roland; fathers and sons, ivan turganev; slaughterhouse-five, kurt vonnegut; the book of the new sun, gene wolfe...or try, all the books i own

B) mostly old ones - i grew up watching AMC, TCM, etc; also scifi both good and bad because bad scifi is comedic; cult classics...here is a sampling: rio bravo, singing in the rain, v for vendetta, with fire and sword (ogniem i mieczem), deathproof, the host, namesake, boondock saints, anything by mel brooks, duck soup, stalker, kung fu hustle, oldboy, big trouble in little china

C) a capella, big band, black metal, bluegrass, blues, classical, classic rock, funk, hair metal, hippie, jazz, oldies, power metal, punk, 80s pop, 80s rap, rockabilly, ska, swing...i really can and do listen to pretty much everything, though i tend to avoid modern top 40 and contemporary country. at work i generally am listening to last.fm

D) chocolates, vanillas, cinnamons, pastas, steak, chicken, cheeses, cheesecake, pirogi and kielbasa, shrimp, salmon and more

The six things I could never do without Propose an edit

a source of information, the outdoors, my imagination, common sense, critical thinking skills

I spend a lot of time thinking about Propose an edit

all the topics i mentioned earlier, and more. i also frequently imagine some sort of disaster or high stress situation occurring and trying to figure out what i would do to survive or get through it (i.e. being at the bank when it gets robbed, the lower floors of my office building catching on fire, being on the metro when it wrecks, where to go when the zombies come)

On a typical Friday night I am Propose an edit

out with friends, out by myself, in with friends, in by myself -- reading, playing on the computer, watching tv, writing, or sleeping. fridays are usually pretty up in the air. most saturday nights I'm at a swing dance.

The most private thing I'm willing to admit here Propose an edit

I really like eating pineapple.

You should message me if Propose an edit

you want to get to know me better; you would like to discuss - philosophy (metaphysics, ethics, language, cognition, etc), physics, politics, religion, computer games, science fiction, fantasy, literature, movies, how realizing that nirvana released 'bleach' 19 years ago makes you feel old, if you want to recommend a book, movie, author, musical artist, places to go camping/hiking, places to hang out/check out in DC and surrounding areas. oh, you should definitely message me if you want to hear about the time I was heckled by Bruce Campbell, my one true claim to fame.

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