Social profiling

[Judd]

I am currently running an after-school program in a rural town in upstate NY.  This job seems surreal most days, even after being a Youth Advocate, an English teacher in Tokyo and a cab driver in upstate NY.  


My passion is writing and I wrote a book-length journal of my stay in Japan.  I hope to finish my first novel this summer when I have a long break from work and I've finished the background reading I want to do (on Arthurian legends and the life and iconic status of Elvis Presley).


Grew up on the Jersey shore with loving parents in a Jewish home.  


Practice Arnis with an amazing teacher and have been doing so, with breaks for leaving town here and there, for a few years now.  Tried Aikido when I was in Japan but the rolling and circular motions of the take-downs made my inner ear go nuts and lest I vomit on the dojo floor, I had to quit after 3 months.

[joshua neff]

1) My family, both maternal & paternal, have been socially active & politically left for a long time. My great-grandparents on my father's side left Russia after the revolution because they were to the left of the Bolsheviks. My grandmother organized unions in the '20s. (Ever seen John Sayles' movie Matewan? That's what she was doing.) Her sister, my great-aunt Sonya, was big in leftist theater in Chicago. (Ever seen Tim Robbins' movie Cradle Will Rock? Sonya was in the audience of the production at the climax of the movie. And when it played in Chicago, she was on stage as Sister Mister.) My other great aunt, May, moved to Poland & stayed there for 14 years to avoid going up before HUAC. She was only able to come back into the US because my family bribed a customs official to sneak her in. My mother & father were civil rights activists & anti-war activists in the '60s. They were on the Selma-Montgomery march. I'm very proud of my family, & my politics are very heavily shaped by them.

2) I'm very much a dilettante--I know a little about a lot of things. I like this, because it allows me to talk to a wide variety of people about topics they're interested in. But I feel like I'm missing out by not knowing a lot about at least one thing. My personal interests include: the history of comics, the Knights Templar, voudon, quantum physics (the laypeople's wacky sort-of-mystical side of it, anyway), Elizabethan England, British post-punk music, the Dada & Surrealist movements, the Beats, goofy conspiracy theories, & pop culture.

3) I'm better than pretty much anyone I know at Six Degrees of Separation with film actors. Seriously. Give me two actors & I'll link them up, movie by movie, in less than six moves. Mike Gentry challenged me on this & I connected Jennifer Lopez to Jessica Tandy & then back to Jennifer Lopez without hitting the same movie twice. Without consulting any online or print resources. (Jennifer Lopez was in The Cell with Vincent D'Onofrio, who was in Ed Wood with Bill Murray, who was in Ghostbusters with Dan Ackroyd, who was in Driving Miss Daisy with Jessica Tandy, who was in Cocoon with Steve Gutenberg, who was in Can't Stop the Music with Valerie Perrine, who was in Superman with Gene Hackman, who was in Enemy of the State with Jon Voight, who was in Anaconda with Jennifer Lopez.) I don't know why so much of my brain is devoted to remembering these actors & these films, but...I find it both troubling & amusing, & a weird source of pride.

4) I moved a lot when I was a kid, & continue to do so as an adult. I've lived in the Bay Area, Detroit, New York (Queens & Long Island), Iowa City, Kansas City, North Carolina, Ecuador (Cuence), Japan (the Kansai area), England (Cambridge), & now Milwaukee.

5) I moved to Milwaukee to go to grad school (for Library/Information Science), but I haven't started yet. I did, however, meet the love of my life here. Her name's Julie, & she's posted her a few times. And she has a daughter, Morgan, who is, in my opinion, the coolest kid ever. I'm quickly become "Dad", which I'm loving. I couldn't have wished for a better family than the one I've suddenly got. In fact, this is the most significant thing to happen to me in recent years, by far.

[jrs]

I am a librarian.

Junior year in college, I switched from a physics to a religion major; eventually received a masters in religion, emphasis on history of religions.

I practice Chen family taijiquan.

I enjoy opera and low budget horror movies.

I recently watched a documentary on Tommy Jarrell, not because I'm familiar with his music, but because I miss the Blue Ridge mountains.

Julie

[Jason Kottler]

Heck, I'd better get in on the act here...

I'm 32 and have been playing RPGs since a 4th grade invite, "Hey, you wanna play a new game?" resulted in a randomly rolled cleric (the worst possible character class for me...). Said cleric died in the first combat and was replaced by a thief who died in the next combat, who was replaced by a fighter who survived long enough for me to realize that I'd be happier playing the thief.

I'm married to the girl I fell in love with my freshman year in high school. We've been together for 18 years and married for coming up on 10. We have a six year old son who's possibly the smartest person I ever met and who begs me to play my own favorite video and computer games with him. As my wife asked, "How does it feel to have raised your own playmate?"

He and I take Chinese Kenpo Karate together and are studying for our purple belts (Crane). We took a year of Choy Li Fut Kung Fu together before we escaped from California back to New Mexico. I enjoyed the CLF, but the highly applicable Kenpo is somehow more satisfying.

I enjoy astronomy and motorcycling am the proud owner of a Meade LX-90 and a Honda Magna. Unfortunately, I cannot take the one with me when I travel on the other. I need either a much smaller telescope or a much larger motorcycle. My wife disputes this point, on the basis of my use of the word "need."

My wife and I created and write our alternate-Victorian indie comic book  The Wonderverse and it's illustrated by two of the best friends we ever made.

[Julie]

Ron, don't you want to get to know your constituents?

1.  I'm the one to whom Josh refers.  I'm 5 years younger than he is - scandalous!  We're like this (crosses fingers).  He and Mo (the daughter, ask him about the RetCon DNA) are like this (crosses fingers) too, but in an entirely paternal way.

2.  The major cities I've lived in have all been in the south:  Nashville, Birmingham, New Orleans.  When I've lived elsewhere, it's been rural (like now - Mukwonago/Waukesha, WI; Socorro, NM).

3.  I want to be a pathologist when I grow up, but for now I'll keep my job as a transcriptionist. (no, I did not get my degree through the mail, thank you very much, it's a real A.A. in medical language from WCTC, all those college credits and APs wasted).

4.   Overriding ambition in life:  Through-hiking the Appalachian Trail.  Failing that:  Through-hiking the Ice Age Trail.  It's right in my backyard.

5.  I am an amateur chef of Olympic standard.

[ScottM]

I have lived my entire life (save vacations) in California, but have lived 25 of my 29 years in the central backwater that rabidly hates both Northern and Southern California.

Did the school thing; in and out with a civil engineering degree.  You know, bridges and buildings and stuff.

I've been called (by various friends, away from games) referee, conciliator, diplomat, and peacemaker.  I treasure it, even when it's supposed to be insulting.

I read constantly, unless I'm prepping to game.  Then breaking out a reference is an excuse to get sucked in to whatever I'm looking up, so I have to be zealous in limiting my reading.  It doesn't always work.

Ursula LeGuin's a favorite author, Sarah McLachlan is a favorite musician, landscapes are my favored posters, Ampersand's a favored blogger... and whatever randomly comes out of the closet is what I wear (no favorites there).

Scott Martin

[Meguey]

Early B/G: Parents split up when I was 4, raised with younger sister by mostly single mom (step-dad drove tractor trailers, worked on oil rigs, and joined the Navy) in rural upstate NY. Started gaming in 1978 w/D&D box set. Homeschooled off and on.

Middle B/G: Spent the 1980's in San Diego due to aforementioned Navy. Hated most of it, but loved the desert and the ocean. I did do lots of LARP/RPG, and found the SCA. Did ok in high school.

Almost recent B/G: When it came to college, got as far from SoCal as possible and landed in Amherst, MA, at Hampshire College. My second year there I was a Peer Advisor (an RA equivalent) and Vincent was one of my advisees. Yes, it was a fairy tale-type thing. Vincent ran a legendary Cyberpunk-ish game that was mostly his own design.  I ran my first Ars Magica campain, with various rule tweeking. I was an EMT while at Hampsire - good for gaming resource. Got my Award of Arms in SCA. Graduated with a BA in American Women's History with a focus on Textiles as a mode of transmitting Hx. Joined Hampshire Shakespear Theater Company as a costume and hair design guru.

Recent B/G: Started bellydancing in Jan 1996. Had Sebastian in Oct 1996. Made about a dozen commissioned quilts, plus gifts etc. Taught at the Fiber Arts Center in Amherst. Had Elliot at home 4/11/2000. Moved to Greenfield MA, joined UU Church (I'm a life-long UU w/strong pagan shades).

Other stuff, in no real order: My mom was reading Tolkein to me when I was about three hours old - really. The nurses thought she was weird. I love words and word origions and derivations and deffinitions; people don't use a wide enough vocabulary, in my mind. I like looking at rocks and knowing how they got that way. I'm fascinated by mummies and long dead stuff; I helped my mom dissect a mink when I was about 3.5. I'm really interested in Germany during the rise of the Hanseatic Leauge, but it's hard to find info on it. Both my grandmothers are first-generation American, from Sweden and Germany. I'm currently doing lots of genealogy work, trying to find my German family. I'm starting to do Bellydance performances, which is fun and scarey. If it falls in the heading 'fiber arts', I've probably at least tried it - lace, knitting, weaving, sewing, spinning, carding, crochet, quilting, caneing, etc., etc. - and I probably have the stuff around here somewhere. We have two great cats.

~Meguey

[Matt Gwinn]

1)  I am the oldest of 6 children and grew up in Torrington CT until I was transplanted to Michigan my senior year of High School (1988).

2)  I was in the Army Reserves about 10 years and 100 lbs ago.  I fixed the occassional telephone or switchboard and mopped and waxed far too many floors.  As far as I know, my unit has not shipped out.

3)  I grew up on welfare surrounded by drugs and alcohol, and even joined a fraternity in college, yet I have never smoked a cigarette, drank an ounce of alcohol or taken a single nonprescription drug.  And I'm still messed up :-)  imagine that.

4)  I borrowed more money than a small country to get an English degree I never use.  Everything I learned to do my current job (graphic design) I learned because it made it easier to make my own character sheets and lay out my own games.

5)  the rest of my life is so unimpressive I can't think of a fifth thing to add to this list.

,Matt G.

[ThreeGee]

Hey all,

Hmm, I grew up in the no-man's land between PA and upper NY in a small town called A Bit South of Ithaca, where I designed board games and computer games until about '89 when I decided to check out this weird kind of wargame called D&D where one person just refereed and decided whether or not anything the other players wanted to do was possible, so I went to the local bookstore (like 30 minutes away, at the mall) and bought GURPS (third edition) and Forgotten Realms (first edition boxed set). Even after reading both many times, it was still a shock when I first saw my friends play actual D&D at lunch, and I decided then and there I had to master this new kind of game. I think my first design was in '92 or so, but I've long since lost my notes from that time period.

Unlike most of my friends, I chose college over the service and moved to Amherst, MA. I never completed an engineering degree, but I worked in the field over breaks for about 4-5 years. Instead, the University of Massachusetts Theater Dept gave me a BA in '00, just before the economy bombed. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, so I worked tech support until the business collapsed, and I have been working pointlessly stupid jobs since, including my current job as a retail supervisor at the university store.

I never formally studied martial arts, but my father coached just about any sport I can think of, and I grew up playing football against much larger kids, so I can put the tricks my friends taught me to good use. Mostly, I watch Hong Kong movies and play Street Fighter. And go out in the woods and beat my friends with padded sticks.

There. Is that five?

Later,
Grant

[DaGreatJL]

1. I grew up in central Iowa, and moved to California to become a tree-hugging environmental activist, of the type that wave placards and chain themselves to things.

2. I have since stopped chaining myself to things, and am getting into social work; I currently work at a youth outreach program, where I get paid to hand out condoms.

3. JL is not my real name, nor are either letters initals of mine; however, they ARE the initials of the first character I ever played, Johnny Lightning, in an online freeform game about 8 years ago; I still use the monicker online.

4. I can both sing and play the trombone, though not at the professional level. I have sang at Carnegie Hall with my high school choir.

5. I am currently attending a local community college, College of the Redwoods.

[Mike Holmes]

3. JL is not my real name, nor are either letters initals of mine; however, they ARE the initials of the first character I ever played, Johnny Lightning, in an online freeform game about 8 years ago; I still use the monicker online.

So what is your real name?

Mike

[DaGreatJL]

Nick; though I PREFER JL. Immature and dorky? Perhaps. Doesn't stop me. :)

[Enoch]

1. I'm a Computer Science major at Michigan State, but I want to change my major to English.  Oh and dual major in Japanese.

2. I am really good at troubleshooting computers.  Its almost like an emphatic link.  "Tell me what's wrong poor thing."  Oh and I name my computers.  My main PC is Enoch.  My laptop is Sumomo (6" anime character).

3. I'm into martial arts, but at the moment really out of shape.  I've practiced Karate for a year.  Tae Kwon Do for 1/2 a year.  And Tang Soo Do for 1 1/2 years.  I want to get into aikido and kendo.

4. I make anime music videos.  Though I haven't made a really good one yet.  Download my first one here: http://www.msu.edu/user/smith465/amv.html

5. I have a wonderful family.  My parents are still together (None of my older friends have a normal family) and are really cool (they took me to OzzFest!).  I have two brothers, one who role-plays, one who is a crazy little dude.

-Joshua

[wyrdlyng]

1. I studied Shuri Goju Ryu karate in grade school and  Tae Kwan Do in middle school. Though I've never used either in a fight it's surprisingly all stored in muscle memory.

2. I have never taken any illegal drugs in my life and yet no one believes me. (I am just naturally like this.) One high school teacher almost had me kicked out of school because he was convinced that I was coming to his class stoned.

3. My wife and I were married 8 years ago on the Winter Solstice. I'm ten years younger than her and we have no intention of ever having children.

4. I can carry on conversations using nothing but quotes from rock and punk songs and there is almost always music playing in my head. (In writing this post it's gone from "Atomic" by Blondie to "Clash City Rockers" by the Clash.)

5. I learned to read from comic books and have been reading them ever since. Sadly, I understand the crappiness of the comics market too well to ever try and publish one for profit.

[anonymouse]

Hnn.

1) I grew up in front of a computer and online; BBSes at 4 and 5, early web a few years later. Earliest memory is playing Frogger on a RadioShack kit-built Tandy hooked up to our teevee.

2) I read Neuromancer when I was maybe 5 years old; it had only been out a few years at this point. Has influenced me to such a point I can't single out any specific things it steered me towards. Permeated everything.

3) I never lie. Ever. It's not worth the effort.

4) My favourite past-time is dreaming.

5) In about a year I'm going to pack a bag and start walking; whatever it is I want out my existance, it's not a career and it's not a home life.