I was born in Auburn, California, in 1986. We lived there only about a year; then we moved around Northern California a bit, then to Southern California. After a year or so there (during which my brother, Harlan, was born), we moved across country to a small, out-of-the-way burg named Piketon, an hour from Columbus, Ohio. Some of my earliest memories come from there; our simple house, the creek out back where I used to catch crayfish, the enormous noise the katydids and crickets used to make on summer nights...and our hick neighbors, whose kids I used to play with.
After a while in Columbus (during which I attended public school, which I remember very little of), we moved down to East Tennessee: Oak Ridge, to be exact, once home to an installation of the Manhattan Project. I believe the uranium ore was refined there. The enormous complex still loomed like a gray set of epaulets over the city itself. We lived (as we usually did, disliking cities and suburbs) way out in the boonies, closer to Clinton, Tennessee. That was a wild place. We had a two-story house, a pond out back, and acre upon acre of woods. When it snowed in winter (if it snowed) we had a splendid sledding hill, too, with thorn bushes at the bottom and everything, which once my brother and I aimed for and plowed at least eight feet into. Fortunately we were protected from injury by our thick parkas. We fished for bluegill and sunfish in the pond, mowed what seemed like a twenty-acre lawn every summer and promptly collapsed into our in-ground pool (where Dad taught us to swim), played in the upstairs hallway (where once we put our pet gerbils into a Tonka truck and ran it down the hall, seriously injuring them and necessitating a tear-laden, anguished trip to the animal hospital), and swung on the swing suspended from the gigantic black oak tree in our front yard, where every fall we'd rake the leaves into a pile beneath and catapult into it. Those were the days. We lived in Tennessee the longest we'd lived anywhere: five years, including the year-long stint we had in a townhouse after we'd sold the big house while we were preparing to move back out west.
In 1999 we went back to the California desert: Apple Valley, the same place my brother was born. Dad actually got his old job back, ten years after he'd left it. We lived in a wonderful adobe hacienda way out in the boonies once again, in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. The place was beautiful. We had two acres of paddock out back, where we kept wild mustangs purchased from the Bureau of Land Management and trained them; a dirt road running across the north and east borders of our property, which horse trailers and dirt bikes rattled or roared along more often than we liked; a fresh desert breeze blowing through the windows; a porch and a semi-green lawn out back great for playing touch football or grilling; the scenic juniper-laden slopes of the San Gabriels behind, and the valley spread out in front, and across from us the rocky, sun-blasted Granite Mountains, which looked like they could've been dropped from the planet Mars. To the northwest was the tri-city area: Apple Valley, Victorville and Hesperia, visible to us nearly in its entirety, glimmering like a mirage by day, twinkling like a starlit sky by night.
It was here that I, home schooled since Tennessee and third grade, went to high school: AVHS, Apple Valley Senior High, class of 2004. These were the halcyon days of my youth, I think. I joined clubs and spent many a hot desert afternoon planning History Club outings, playing chess or computer games, debating (I founded the debate club myself), or just chilling at the library. I grew to love that school, despite how unfamiliar and unfriendly it had seemed to me as a newcomer to the state and the public school system. In my sophomore year, however, I found some great friends, who are still with me today: John, Lee, Virginia, Megan, and more. I came to be the class clown and was voted "Most Unique" in my senior yearbook (if that makes any grammatical sense at all).
Upon graduating in 2004, I began making the three-day commute to my chosen college, North Dakota State University, every summer and Christmas. Struck hard by senioritis, I suppose I was your typical lazy college student: drinking on weekends, playing video games or walking in the park by day (or playing Ultimate Frisbee, or just cruising around town, or going to see movies at the dollar theater, or chilling at the library, or riding my classic Schwinn Beach Cruiser around campus). I wrote papers and essays the night before they were due, alternately scrambling and relaxing, panicking and unwinding, being diligent and procrastinating. I lived in the dorms the entire time. As charming a city as Fargo was (cool breezes and flowers in spring, beautiful fall foliage, not-too-hot summers and Christmas-card winters with a blizzard or two, and all sweetened by a veneer of Northern hospitality) I knew I wouldn't be staying after I graduated, so I didn't bother with an apartment. I wouldn't have traded the dorm experience, anyway. It was like living in a house with a few dozen brothers. We were always wandering the halls, peeking into each other's rooms, jumping up to go get pizza or see a movie or play a game out on the fields around campus, starting up impromptu video game tournaments or movie marathons, or just generally having fun of some kind. We bunked our beds and turned our dorm rooms into personalized man-caves: posters ribald with college humor on the walls, Christmas lights, comfy furniture, carpeting, refrigerators filled with snacks, and what-have-you. It was my first taste of true independence, and there was magic in the air. College was like a big commune, really. I tasted alcohol for the first time, first considered the mysteries of the opposite sex, exposed myself to opposing viewpoints on all subjects, and ventured into states of mind of which I had not dreamt. I even had a girlfriend in college, my first and (thus far) only: Elizabeth. She was just what I needed, a wonderful, kind, sensible woman who could always cut me off before I reached the limits of stupidity or boorishness. We had some wonderful talks and spent many an hour in conversation, circumnavigating the campus or reviewing one another's movie collection. She and I remain friends to this day.
Alas, all good things must come to an end. I graduated college in December, 2007 and spent the next six months in fruitless job-hunting in Cheyenne, Wyoming. My parents had moved there in '06, putting their Apple Valley house in the market in the meantime, which still hasn't sold. Besides looking for work, I took to strolling around beautiful Sloans Lake, taking flying lessons at Cheyenne Regional Airport, working at Sierra Trading Post (the wholesale version of REI) and cruising around town in my '96 Ford Taurus, blasting classic rock on the radio.
Then I found this Korean job and took it. And here I am. The rest you know.
If you want to know about me, personally, I can tell you a little of whatever comes to mind. I am six feet tall, with blue eyes and dark brown hair. I have a round, somewhat chubby face. I played soccer (and later, reffed it) in Apple Valley, but I've been overweight ever since graduating high school. The Freshman 15 didn't miss me in college. It is only here, taking walks every day and doing exercises, that I've lately begun to get my figure back.
I am an outgoing guy, not much of a conversationalist but willing to attempt it. I used to be quite shy; I gradually trained myself out of it. I love to be the jokester, the class clown. Puns are my cup of tea. I'll spout bad puns whenever the occasion even thinks of arising. I'm always looking for a way to turn casual sentences into plays on words or jokes. That's annoying to some people and hilarious for others. I am a relentless optimist, usually. I try never to be down in the dumps, 'cause that shortens one's lifespan, y'know. I'm desperately afraid of death but am going to have a risky lifestyle anyway, just for the fun of it. I like to write and have been told I'm good at it, just as I was once good at drawing.
I am very uptight about the sanctity of language: I detest all emoticons (those annoying smiley-faces people put into their e-mails and text messages) and trite abbreviations like LOL, TTYL, LMAO, ROTFLOL, and so on. I correct other people's grammar unmercifully (as the Meticulous Grammarshal, which sounds better than Grammar Nazi; I've included the Grammar Nazi flag above).
Traveling, flying and writing are the three things I hold most dear, but I also love reading, eating, drinking, sleeping, walking, imagining, gaming, dancing (if I knew how), and learning. In fact, I want to learn three more languages (after finishing Korean and Spanish), and there's a lot of history I don't know yet.
As you know from my writing updates, I'm writing a book and am going to turn it into a comic book. Any book ideas that I have later I'll duly report on. I'm sarcastic, selfish, mean-spirited and whiny sometimes, but most of the time I'm happy-go-lucky, cheerful, and intelligent. I'm half action hero and half cartoon character, or so I hope. I want to live a full life so I can die without regrets (preferably in a heroic fashion). I hope someday to be a published author; an accomplished pilot; a seasoned traveler; and a loving husband and father (if I could but find the woman). I value the brain above all other human possessions, the book above all other art forms, airplanes above all other inventions, democracy above all other governments, liberty above all other abstract nouns, and whiskey above all other liquors. And that's me.
Any questions?
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