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Personal Bio

I don't know why I include a "personal bio" page on my site, but maybe I'll be surprised and someone will actually find it useful. Here goes: Born in Los Angeles, CA. My father is a dentist, and he served in both the Navy and the Air Force with a brief period in between when he was in private practice. I have lived all over, from LA to Seattle to Emmett, ID to Guam to San Antonio to Mississippi to Romania to New York City. I have lived in Provo/Orem Utah now since 1993, and have no immediate plans to leave.

I think a fortune cookie once summed up a good description of me. It must have been fate that inspired some Chinese factory worker wrapping stale cookies around hoaky messages to include this one that ended up on my bill platter next to the mint: "You are contemplative and analytic by nature."

I won't go into how much I am annoyed at fortune cookies that don't include fortunes, but rather instructions or a description (such as this one), but this random cookie-generated description actually fits me fairly well.

First off, I am very contemplative. Sometimes I spend hours thinking about the most inconsequential things. It isn't an attempt to be an intellectual snot or anything--I just enjoy looking beyond the obvious answers in life to find my own personal ones. A friend (actually, the wife of a friend) once told me that I have in my head more useless information than anyone she knows. I took that as a compliment (until my wife later explained it to me.)

Next, I do indeed fit the analytic description. I subscribe to the analytic school of Philosophy and consider myself for the most part a reductionist, though I would probably disagree with almost all of what today's reductionists would say. I also am not a big fan of labels for describing one's philosophy, but it's either that or invest time in adequate description--you'll thank me for opting for the former.

I read almost exclusively non-fiction. Science and philosophy are among my favorite types. I subscribe to Scientific American and for some twisted reason am enthralled by reading popular books on science (NOT science fiction). I don't read much fiction. I do, however, enjoy some classic literature such as Hugo's Les Miserables and Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky. I also really loved The Count of Monte Cristo (Dumas), Around the World in Eighty Days (Verne), and Brave New World (Huxley). (Incidentally, I wanted to name my first son "Aldous", but my wife refused. I now am starting to think that was probably wise on her part.) Those books aren't really fiction in my mind, for some reason. I feel like they tend to hold so much philosophical and innovative content that they describe more life than just the characters and situations in the plot. (I also might just be reading that kind of stuff to make sure I am not missing out something everyone else says is great.) I wouldn't say I was a big reader, but I usually have at least one book that I am working on.

I enjoy the outdoors and love to fish and backpack. I have also recently begun to do a lot of fly tying and have covered an entire table in our utility room with hundreds of sections of dead animals well-suited for tying flies.

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I graduated from Brigham Young University with a BA in Linguistics (and yes, I do resent having a BA instead of a BS, where Linguistics should be categorized in my opinion, but at least now I seem "artsy".) I started my college career in the Microbiology program, but soon found myself losing interest (or maybe I was just bored--is there a difference?).

I married my wife, Hailey, in June of 1998, and have never regretted a day of it. Marriage is an institution that I highly recommend. I have two children, Mila (daughter) and Ethan (son). Mila used to have her own website but I have moved all photos and events to this site now in a effort to consolidate.

I spent a year in Romania learning Romanian and being a missionary (not necesarily in that order). I used to speak fluent Romanian, but now just "fluent-ish". I also studied Russian at BYU for a couple of years. I found myself seated next to a Russian gentleman on a long flight to Alaska recently and realized that I don't really speak much Russian at all.

Hobbies: backpacking, fishing, volleyball, video games, film, reading, frequenting fine restaurants, making bad web pages.

That about covers me (Gee--I hope that's not true--how boring would that make me?)

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