"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."--Holden Caulfield, from J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye.

But really....I'm a twenty-six year old Quality Assurance Engineer(I write code! Honest! I swear!) currently living in Lincoln Park, which is about three miles north of downtown Chicago where I work. I can even get up at 8:30, take a shower, and get to work "on time" because I am a half-block away from two CTA bus routes. Which are usually more convenient than driving.

In the "I write! I swear!" department, I frequently procrastinate writing with a lot of reading. I don't see how you can really understand a good book until you've read it at least three times. My favorite authors are

I work out at Bally Fitness a lot even though there are too many televisions around, and they constantly play stupid music through speakers.

Oh--If you MUST know, I was born in West Lafayette, Indiana, sixty miles northwest of Indianapolis. Purdue University is there, too. I'm a pretty rabid Purdue fan and was glad to see three rather memorable games at Northwestern: one where Drew Brees broke the Big Ten record for touchdown passes in a season(November of '98) and another where the women's team clinched a 16-0 record in Big Ten play en route to the 1999 national championship(It was Northwestern's long-time coach's last home game that day, and then Purdue knocked him out of the Big Ten tourney as a retirement gift.) I also saw a great game in West Lafayette where we narrowly lost to Penn State in 1999, and I got to see something I prophesied when I was eight, after the first game I saw(Purdue 34, Northwestern 21)--ONE DAY, I WOULD SEE PURDUE AND NORTHWESTERN PLAY FOR THE RIGHT TO GO TO THE ROSE BOWL. In an eerily similar game(in scoring but not quality) I saw, in 2000, Purdue knock off Northwestern. Had the 'Cats won, THEY would have gone to the Rose Bowl. Oh yeah, I've seen some decidedly mediocre Purdue-NU games over the years, but--err--back to me!

Miscellaneous stuff--I have an impressive basketball and football jersey collection. I also own over 500 books, each of which I've read. Twice. Once, when I check the book from the library, and once after I decide to buy it I have a lot of spare time on the "L" or the bus to work, and I can read pretty quickly when I put my mind to it.

I work at IntraNet Solutions and have since July 2000. Before they bought my division out, I worked at since April 1998 at eBTi(eBusiness Technologies, inc.), formerly known as INSO, and likely soon to be formerly known as eBTi. I may be the only person in my office that actually made any money on their stock purchase plan. 1