I am the very model of a modern major general. (If you take the time to read my entire profile you should come back and read this line again.)

I like to know how things work.

If I could create music I'd never leave the house.

I'm pretty smart, but I've got a lot to learn.

I'm realistic about our faults as a species, but I'm optimistic about every individual I meet. Even here. ;)

I have a lot of fantastic, beautiful, wild, crazy, sexy, and so on friends. I tend to get close to people I click with very quickly and want them to be around until one of us croaks. I'm lucky to have probably a dozen or so people in my life that would drop anything and come running if I needed them to, and I would do the same for them. You can never have too many people like that in your life.

I was born in Chicago but moved around a bit as a kid. The things I miss most about the Midwest: thunderstorms (and I don't mean one flash of lightning and a couple minutes of drizzle...), great live music, warm summer nights, and wonderful architecture.

Looking for the place where what I love to do intersects with what I find important.

Having fun, trying to be a better person than I was yesterday, and always looking for people or things that inspire me.

Yes. I have a job. I tell computers what to do on behalf of good causes. I'm fortunate enough to be an independent contractor so I'm also looking forward to doing a lot of snowboarding this winter.

I'm about to start climbing mountains again.

Laughing. Seriously. Listening to people I care about. I'm good at problem-solving, of reducing things to their smallest components and then putting them back together in new and interesting ways. I'm a really good friend.

Road tripping. It's the journey not the destination. The place in between here and there is very special.

Being patient and then getting shit done when it's time for action. Yep, I'm a (mostly) recovered procrastinator. I got a keychain and everything.

Paying attention. Sometimes people think I'm insightful, but I think that mostly it's just that if I'm spending time with someone it's because I'm genuinely interested in them so I'm paying attention.

Tough to say. I can be pretty quiet when I first meet people and a lot of people interpret that as me being a serious person. On the other hand I can be the guy taking a joke a little too far. So, either quiet or laughing. A lot.

Books: I love books. I recently got rid of all of my books and I miss them dearly. I read a lot, mostly fiction of various types, but I love popular science books of all kinds too.

Movies: Too many to list, but Say Anything and American Beauty are near the top. The last two movies I watched were The Reader and Zombieland. I thoroughly enjoyed them both. :)

Music: Stuff I listened to today...Nina Simone, Tool, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Ella Fitzgerald, Ani Difranco, Metallica (old), Zeppelin, Radiohead, Zoe Keating, Sam Cooke, Tricky, Chopin, Bon Iver, David Byrne, NIN, Prince, Jeff Buckley. I love live music of pretty much all kinds.

If you like Indie rock kinda stuff at all, do yourself a favor and pick up Dark Was the Night. My Brightest Diamond covering "Feeling Good" is worth it all by itself.

Food: I love food. About the only cuisine I can't get into is German. I'm not convinced that Germans are even into it. I was a vegetarian for a couple of years and it was great, but I'm not anymore.

If you know where I can find some really good Mexican or Italian in Seattle I'll be your best friend for one whole day (I'm serious about this. I'm a really good friend to have, even just for one day. I miss good Mexican and Italian food like you can get in S. California and Chicago).

music, friends, easy access to nature, daydreams, feeling like i'm on my way somewhere, and the chance to pick the sixth thing later

My next road trip.

Other people, and why they keep doing it wrong. My friends. Where the balance is between being happy and doing right by the rest of the world.

"Sometimes getting better is so much better than just being good that we'd rather suffer getting worse just for the chance of getting back to good."

Do these exist? At happy hour somewhere, doing homework, seeing a movie with friends, starting a weekend road trip....

It bugs me when guys stalk me on OKCupid. Why? I dunno. Ridiculous twinge of homophobia. If you read that and you're thinking, "That's lame, disappointing, [insert negative adjective here]." Yeah, that's what I'm thinking too. (I am perversely refusing to remove this. Have I mentioned that I can be incredibly stubborn sometimes? I mostly use my powers for good.)

I'm a pretty open person. I'll keep your secrets but I don't worry much about trying to keep my own.

I'm not good at doing things I don't want to do. Actually, I'm horrible at it. On the flip side, I'm generally easygoing and you always know that if I'm doing something or hanging out with someone it's because I want to be.

you wanna go to a show, try a new restaurant, get outside hiking or snowboarding, or just hang out and share some really good music.

you're a little crazy. Not a lot crazy, but anyone who's paying attention even a little bit to what's going on around them has to be a tiny bit crazy by now...at least that's my excuse.

you want to go stargazing.