History
Here’s a picture of me when I was five years old. Hmmm, I look so serious. I was in first grade in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada. I only spent a few days in kindergarten because Mom had already taught me how to read and so I moved into first grade when I was five.
During second grade we moved to New Zealand for three years, then Sweet Home, Oregon. In high school we moved back to Canada for a while (to Vancouver, British Columbia), back to Oregon, and then finally to Benicia, California (in the San Francisco Bay Area) where I graduated from high school.
I went to the University of California at Berkeley, for a year, on a mission to Finland for two years, and back to school for another 3 and a half years. I subsequently moved to the Silicon Valley (the southern SF Bay Area region where many computer geeks like myself end up). In 2007 we moved a little further south, to Santa Cruz, land of wind and waves.
Lifestyle
Music
I love music. It’s a great feeling when you practice something with a group long enough to get it down well. I have participated in amateur musical productions, variety shows, and football halftime performances. I was a member of the Cal Band (University of California, Berkeley), the Foothill College Symphonic Wind Ensemble, and a member of the Silicon Valley Gay Mens’ Chorus. I sing baritone and play the euphonium.
The Euphonium is a brass instrument from the Tuba family. It’s about half the size of a tuba, however, and plays notes an octave above what a tuba normally plays. This places it in the same musical range as a trombone or the typical male voice. It has three valves which you use to adjust the length of the tube, but there are only seven unique combinations of the valves, so playing a particular note also requires buzzing the lips with the appropriate tightness.
The tube is conical, meaning it starts small at the mouthpiece and gradually gets bigger and bigger. This is one feature which differentiates it from a trombone, which, like a trumpet, has tubing which is pretty much the same diameter throughout its length (except for the bell). That makes a difference in the way it sounds. Ok, so you’ll have to trust me on that.
Orienteering
I am a member of the Bay Area Orienteering Club. What is orienteering? A sport I enjoy a lot, since it gets me in the great outdoors to enjoy the big trees and pretty flowers. You get to run around in the woods with a map and a compass trying to find the best way through the terrain. It’s fun to be dressed up in the club uniform (on the right).
The uniform is made of a light nylon mesh that doesn’t tear and doesn’t absorb water. It keeps me quite cool, even in the hot sun. It covers me from ankle to wrist and protects me from the various things in the woods that scratch, bite, or itch (ie. thorns, ticks, and poison oak). The yellow gators around my shins provide extra padding in case I whack my leg against a fallen log. I wear shoes that have cleats on them. Each cleat has a metal stud on it that helps it grip on fallen logs or rocky surfaces.
The course I run usually takes me around 2 hours, covering around 9 or more kilometers of terrain and including somewhere around 600 meters of climb. Needless to say there are some great views from the tops of the hills in the Sierras. You can orienteer too. It’s easy to start, as a beginners’ workshop is usually provided at each of the local club events. The entry level courses do not leave the trails, so you needn’t fear getting lost in the woods on your first time out.
I typically carry a watch, a compass, a map, a punch card, and an emergency whistle. If something happens to you in the woods, you blow the emergency whistle three times to signal you need help. Repeat blowing the whistle until you lose consciousness, er, I mean, you are rescued.
Adoptions
Some years ago, Phillip and I adopted two boys. They moved in with us in the summer of 2001 as foster children and their legal adoptions followed within a year or so, as soon as could be arranged. From the beginning, Phillip and I intended to adopt them, in order to assure them of a secure and lasting home and a stable, family-like relationship. At the time they moved in, Rubin was about to turn 14 and Michael was 12. The picture on the right was taken around that time.
It has been quite an adventure, and I’d like to someday document the experiences we had, because I feel that much of what we learned may be of benefit to other parents of teenagers. I’m glad that we did it, as I had to develop a lot of new skills in order to cope. And I picked up a few other things along the way, like how to play Dance Dance Revolution.
In 2003, Phillip, Rubin, Michael, and I ran in the annual Los Gatos Dammit Run together. The race is a steep 5 mile trail run and everyone finished.
Running
I love to run. My favorite race distances are 10 kilometers and the half marathon. I got my start running races as a member of the Bayland FrontRunners. I started running as a way to get back into shape, after a few years of sitting in front of a computer at work and eating a few hundred donuts. Dropping the donuts helped a lot, but exercise makes the biggest difference.
I started with the simple goal of running three times a week for half an hour each time. At first I couldn’t even run the whole half hour, I’d run for a little then walk for a little. Eventually I could run for a whole half hour and then I started increasing the distance I could make it in the half hour. Now, after several years and the competition provided by running and orienteering clubs, I can run 10 kilometers (about 6 miles) in less than 40 minutes. The longest distance I’ve ever run is 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) in a flat road race near Sacramento, and I did that in just over two hours (at about 7 minutes/mile).
Ultimate Frisbee
I also like to play Ultimate Frisbee. I’ve played for years with some folks from Synopsis and Sun, if you’d like to join in, check out the Encinal Ultimate Page. The games are at lunchtime on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I haven’t been playing lately because I live in Santa Cruz now, but when I am playing it certainly helps me stay in shape.
Tae Kwan Doe
I took two years of Tae Kwon Do lessons at Ernie Reyes’ West Coast Martial Arts in Santa Clara. I’d always wanted to learn some martial arts and this is an excellent program mixed martial arts program. They mix in a bunch of things from other arts beside Tae Kwon Do, like: Mui Thai, Apkido, Brazilian Jujitsu (grappling), and Kick Boxing. I stopped taking the classes when I moved to Santa Cruz, since they don’t have a branch of the school here. In the meantime I have switched back to more running and weightlifting for a while.
Work
I am a software engineer with many years of experience. Wherever I go, I typically create new visual interfaces in Java Swing, interactive web sites written in PHP using MySQL databases, or a host of other useful internal tools. Whatever it takes to make the team more productive is what I do. For more complete and up-to-date information, please have a look at my public profile on LinkedIn.