On March 3, 1978, in the only hospital in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, I was born into this world kicking and screaming, and my parents often remind me that I haven't changed much since. I choose to take that as a compliment. My kicking and screaming isn't a vulgar retaliation against the injustices of this world that have caused me great suffering and misfortune, for I've lived a truly blessed life. Wonderful parents, wonderful siblings, wonderful friends. I even had a wonderful dog once, but he ran away. And I've had my fair share of wonderful experiences. My kicking and screaming is a celebration of life, a manifestation of the joy I feel for being alive. It's a manic urge to express myself through a number of mediums in loud, bright colors that say "Thank you God for blessing me with so much!" Not to say that I don't paint gloomier themes in darker colors sometimes, as manic urges are just one part of an alternating cycle of highs and lows. I'm sure a graph of my life would alternate erratically back and forth across that central axis that represents "normality", but I can say truthfully that I'm happy the curves of my life have never become lines, especially ones that rest flat on that central axis. I plan to go on kicking and screaming when I can, and when I can't, in those periods of self-reflection and soul-searching that I sometimes desperately crave, I hope to learn how to kick harder and scream louder. Not to lash out, but to be heard. Not to hurt, but to help. To change. And to create.

That's my deepest desire, my one true driving energy. To create. And a tortuous, sometimes agonizing path it has been to discovering how best to create. It's a path I'll most likely spend my entire life stumbling down, discovering new outlets for my creative urges as I go. I see a lot of Vincent van Gogh in me. Not that I'll ever have his talent (although he'd be the first to argue that talent can be a very subjective thing), or necessarily find that one medium of expression to so faithfully, and painfully, pursue, but I feel that same feverish drive to create at times, and I've seen how it can lead me to both great joy and misery, often simultaneously. And to think I was once an aspiring engineer. Oh, the roads we travel in life. Never knowing the way because we never know the final destination.

But I digress. I don't know why I decided to share such spontaneous insights about myself. Perhaps it's because I didn't have a final destination in mind for this portion of my site. I just needed a fifth section to balance out the design of the main page, and having a page "about me" seemed like a good idea at the time, even though the entire site is "about me". If you'd like a slightly more focused, concise version of my background, you can always read this. Or check out my resume, which lists really important things like how I received the "Employee of the Month" award in August, 1996 at Best Buy Electronics. Exciting stuff. Otherwise, I'm just going to use this place to list some of my favorites for now. Yes, it's about the lamest thing I could possibly think of to put on this page. But you're here looking at it, so what does that say about you... =0)

Music		Arab Strap, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Badly Drawn Boy, Belle & Sebastian, Ben Harper, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Brendan Benson, Caedmon's Call, Catherine Wheel, Clinic, Coldplay, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Dandy Warhols, David Gray, Dashboard Confessionals, Death Cab for Cutie, The Decemberists, Dispatch, The Fray, Fukuyama Masaharu, Gene, Guster, Jump Little Children, Iron and Wine ("The Trapeze Swinger" has to be one of the most beautiful songs ever), James (one of my all-time favorites!), JJ72, Led Zepellin, Lifehouse, Longpigs, Manic Street Preachers, Mason Jennings, Modest Mouse, Muse, Mycroft Holmes, Neil Finn, Ocean Colour Scene, Pale Pacific, Pete Yorn, Pinback, Placebo, Pu Shu, Remy Zero, The Shins, The Smiths, Snow Patrol (best recent find), Spitz, Splendor, Spoon, Sunny Day Real Estate, Tom McRae, Tonic, Travis, Turin Brakes, The Vines, Xu Wei, The Yellow Monkeys, Yoshii Robinson
Movies		Cyclo, Nanook of the North, Babel, Crazy Stone, Old Boy, Shawshank Redemption, Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl, Swallowtail, Dr. Strangelove, City of God, Matrix, Ermo, Hotel Rwanda, Crash, The Professional (Léon), Requiem for a Dream, Full Metal Jacket, The Princess Bride, Amores Perros, Once Were Warriors, Amelie, Snatch, Go (Japanese version), The Vertical Ray of the Sun, Missing Gun, Drifters, Suzhou River, Purple Butterfly, Dumplings, Chungking Express, Fallen Angles, YiYi, To Live (Zhang Yimou), Last Life in the Universe, 3-Iron
Directors		Wang Kar Wai, Kim Ki-Duk, Guy Ritchie, Iwai Shunji, Wang Xiaoshuai, Lou Ye, Darren Aronofsky, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Anh Hung Tran
DPs		Wang Yu, Christopher Doyle, Lance Acord
Actors		This section is rather difficult actually. I'm a big fan of Asano Tadanobu. Maybe Kaneshiro Takeshi, but only because he speaks so many damn langauges! And Maggie Cheung is pretty awesome (and speaks several languages as well). Ok, and I rather like Geoffrey Rush's performances. And if I have to, I'll admit that Johnny Depp has done some pretty darn good stuff. And I like Renee Zellweger, but only because of her role in Jerry McGuire (and because she's from Houston).
Foods		Thai (favorite cuisine), curry (any kind!), ice cream (mint chocolate chip, chocolate chip cookie dough... yummy!)
Cities		Fukuoka, Austin, Honolulu, Sapporo, Qingdao, Pusan
Sports		Snowboarding (!!!), skiing, soccer, ultimate frisbee, swimming, mountain biking, rollerblading, raquetball, duck duck goose