Little ol' me

Well, if you came to my site, you might be wondering just who the heck I am. Alternatively, you might know me, and be interested in how I actually see myself, so you can use it to mock me later. If you want one sentence, I'd say I'm a web geek; a beer and coffee snob; a cinephile; an audiophile; a rabid cyclist; and a tai chi aficionado who is a passingly good photographer, and a frustrated musician who has given up his dreams of rock stardom. Additionally you might be able to plop in "Javascript guru" but this site isn't an amazing example of that. Oh, and I play too much XBox, damn it!

Astrology-wise (if you believe in it, and I don't, being at worst an atheist, at best agnostic with Taoist tendancies), I'm a Cancer, and if you know Chinese Astrology, I'm a Pig, and my element is Iron. If you want more details, read on...

Where I am from (and a brief history) : What I do for money : What I do for fun
What I like : What I dislike : What I want to do with my life

Where I am from (and a brief history)

I was born and raised in Thunder Bay, Ontario which is situated in Northwestern Ontario, on Lake Superior, near the Minnesota border. As far as I'm concerned, I'll always be from Thunder Bay, no matter where I end up. Unlike some people, I really like my hometown, though I do find it depressing from time to time. Even with the population of almost 110,000, it has a kind of "small town" feel to it, but being in the middle of nowhere, and the biggest city in a 7 hour drive, it has everything you can ask for.

I left Thunder Bay at the age of 18, to go to University. I suppose I could've gone to Lakehead, but I needed a change, and to see new places. I ended up at Ryerson, and took a year of their Aerospace Engineering Program. I ended up dropping out of Engineering, and switching to Fine Arts at York University. An odd choice most would say, but most people aren't aware that my two best marks in high school were in Art, and Calculus. I ended up with my BFA, and a major in Painting. After 4 years without "gainful employment", I went back to school to get in on the "IT bubble". I spent 2 years getting a Diploma in Computer Programming at George Brown College. I'm still here in Toronto and there's a lot to like about it here, but I still don't quite feel like it's home.

What I do for money

Basically, my area of expertise is somewhere in the web design/web development area. It's really a little of both as my skills are varied and flexible. Currently, I work for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, a software development company that develops product suites used specifically in cancer research. I work as the Communications Coordinator. What this basically entails, is I handle outflowing information. That means, marketing materials, newsletters, the website, proposals etc. This includes the graphic and design work, as well as writing, editing and printing. In addition, I'm also involved in the development of most web-based products. This can mean just a design, and creation of a site, or getting into the actual guts doing server side programming. At the moment, I'm heavily involved in a web version of an existing desktop software product, which is using XML, XSL, JSP, SQL and Javascript/AJAX techniques to get things to work.

Previously, I worked at MedHunters.com where I was the Web and Marketing Manager. In this position, I did many things. Basically, similar to what I'm doing at my current job (but with more tech support and more marketing), and there was only ever one product. I was there for almost 7 years. The company was good to me for the most part, but I needed a change.

What I do for fun

Well, "fun" is used loosely here, since a lot of what I consider fun is subjective. The biggest users of my free time are Tai Chi and Ch'i Kung, biking long distances (REALLY long distances... in 5 years, I've logged over 7500km), watching films and playing my dang Xbox... I'd like to get back into swimming, and focus more on photography.

I've been known to participate in, and occasionally host a variety of gambling pools (a la Hockey Pools, Soccer Pools, Dead Pools)

Of course, I'm a multi-faceted individual, so there's plenty more that I do to entertain myself: play guitar, read, I shoot pool, I travel when I can afford the time and money, I try to keep abreast with current technology, and I listen to a LOT of music. Speaking of music, currently in heavy rotation on my iPod is: Athlete, Snow Patrol, Artic Monkeys, Stereophonics, the Dandy Warhols, Franz Ferdinand, the Killers, David Bowie, PJ Harvey, Coldplay, Radiohead, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, the Police... uh... let's just leave it at "LOTS"

What I like

Favourite Books: The Tao of Pooh, the Illuminatus Trilogy, Foucault's Pendulum, The Lord of the Rings, the Harry Potter Series, the Baroque Cycle, and currently getting up there as I read it One Train Later by Andy Summers.

Favourite Films: The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Fight Club, American Beauty, Amelie, Das Boot, Blade Runner (Director's Cut), Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, the Legend of Drunken Master, The Great Escape, Dirty Harry, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Unforgiven, Run Lola Run, Grosse Pointe Blank, Beautiful Girls, Thank You For Smoking and for some reason the Transporter.

Favourite Television: The Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, Futurama, the new Battlestar Galactica, Mythbusters, Barclay's Premiership Football and Hockey Night in Canada (of course).

Favourite Foods: roti, gnocchi, pad thai, perogies, roast beef with yorkshire pudding, lasagna, wasabi peas and a nice steak cooked medium rare, yow!

Favourite Drinks: beer (Creemore Springs, Keith's Pale Ale or a nice Hefeweisen with some lemon), Caffe Americano, green tea, Dr. Pepper and mojitos!

What I dislike

This list will be long...

Bad drivers and bad bikers, as they ruin it for everybody.
Television news on US networks
The fact that the W3C removed the "target" attribute... idiots
People pushy about their religion
The religious right (see above)
People who live beyond their means
Riding the TTC during rush hour
People that drive to a spinning class... I mean, just bike!
Reality Television! God it's HORRIBLE
Jim Carey and Wil Ferrell (in any role but Old School), because they just aren't funny.

What I want to do with my life

I really hadn't been giving this as much thought as I should be. I suppose the most immediate thing for me, is to master the form of Tai Chi I'm studying (weapons, martial applications and everything else). The other thing that's up there, but not for a couple years yet, is moving out of Toronto. At one point, I wanted to try Europe for a few years (since I have a valid EU passport and could just go). I am still considering that, but I think it's more likely that I'll end up moving out west sometime. Particularily Vancouver, because I really love it out there.