Personal

Last update: 24 June 2003

I can't imagine that many people are going to look at this, so I'm not going to worry about being really boring with what I write here. Enjoy.

A little history...

I was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. Unfortunately, before I could develop my interest in skiing, we moved to Corvallis, Oregon. We didn't stay in Oregon for very long, and so my first real memories are of living in Hartford, Connecticut. Those memories mainly consist of learning to ski in our back-yard, playing He-Man with my best friend Stephen, and The Talking Bush. Later, I learned that the talking bush was a clever microphone/speaker contraption set up by our next-door neighbor. All my memories of Connecticut are pretty hazy.

When I was six years old, we moved to Ohio. We lived in a duplex in Worthington for half a year until our house in Dublin was finished. Living in the duplex, I remember one of the neighborhood kids introducing me to Voltron. Soon, we moved to our permanent house in Dublin. My parents still live in that house. My older sister, Kirsten now lives in nearby Columbus where she does graphic design for a local liquor distributor. She still claims that she will someday go to medical school. She graduated in 1997 from Kenyon College with a degree in Biopsychology.

I went to school in Dublin from Kindergarten on up. From the age of six, I played most available little-league sports, with the exception of football, which I have never enjoyed. After a few years, I stopped playing most, and continued the two sports which I have grown to love, Baseball and Skiing. School went by relatively uneventfully for me. I did reasonably well, and never experienced a major personal tragedy. I can't say I really enjoyed high school very much. Most of the kids growing up in my hometown were real snobs. My fondest memories from high school were my three best friends, Brian, Nick and Liesel, and the two girls with whom I had serious relationships, Carolyn and Stephanie. It's funny to think that high school, as much as anything, has shaped who I am and what my interests are. I'm a compassionate, introverted cynic with an interest in computers and music. At some point I decided that I had better get out of Ohio for College, so I came to the University of Michigan since it has a good Engineering program.

Aside from meeting several of my friends at the university, freshman year was pretty uneventful. I didn't make the drumline my first year, and I wasn't really interested in any of my coursework. Sophomore year was more fun; I moved out of the dorms, made the snareline, and finally started to take classes that I was interested in. That summer I stayed in Ann Arbor and did research with Professor John Laird and played in a Summer Ultimate Frisbee league which was a lot of fun. Junior year I met my Girlfriend Michelle at the beginning of the year, and we've been happy ever since. That summer, I stayed in Ann Arbor again and continued my research with Professor Laird. The following year I took some classes and worked at Beyond Interactive. It was a busy year, but rather rewarding. In the summer of 2000 I had an internship in Japan working for NS Solutions, in Oita City on Kyushu island. My project was: "create a system with framework, using JAVA, aimed at enabling university-students to obtain information (on school-schedule, library, and many other items) through the internet on a cellular-phone with framework". It was pretty cool. There is a lot of detail about that summer in the journal section.

After returning, I had another year of classes and finally graduated. Then I worked for Professor Teorey for the summer on an online tutorial system for non-engineering students. Not sure what's happened to that, but I'll put up a link if I ever find out.

At the end of a long summer of not knowing wether I was going to enter the real world, or go to grad school, I received a very last-minute offer to be a Graduate Student Research Assistant. This was in large part thanks to the afforementioned Professor Teorey. Since this position provides for tuition as well as a stipend, I took it, and have been working for Professor Kang Shin ever since. I'm currently involved in a research project with Lockheed Martin, but I'm not at liberty to say much about it. If everything goes well, I should finish my masters degree next December.

Right now, it's summer, and I'm just continuing with my research. Michelle is off doing an intership in Pertrified Forest National Park in Arizona. She graduated last spring, and is taking a year off before grad school in 2004. Next year we'll be living together in the Village Green apartment community near the intersection of Geddes and Dixboro by US-23. It's a really nice apartment and I'm looking forward to it.

This summer, I've taken an increased interest in ultimate, and in addition to my normal summer league, I'm playing with a local club team called Viscous Coupling. I'm also playing plenty of disc golf with Dan, Greg and Scott. You can check out my suckitude.

That's all for now.

Organizations that I am was involved with

Eta Kappa Nu (aka HKN): A national honor society for Computer and Electrical Engineers. HKN eligibility is determined by GPA. Election requires community service projects as well as social functions.
University of Michigan Marching Band: I played in the MMB for my first two years as a Snare Drummer. Junior year I played bass drum #4, senior year I played #2. The bassline was much that year, and we have continued to see each other regularly for weekly bass bowling.
Engineering Honor Council: A student body which investigates alleged violations of the college of engineering honor code. This body hears cases and makes recommendations to the Faculty Committee on Discipline

In my spare time I enjoy

Skiing: I don't get out very often any more, but had great fun with the U-M Ski Club when I went to Whistler with them last year.
Ultimate: If it didn't conflict with marching band, I'd have played ultimate here, but I still enjoy just tossing it around with my friends when I get the chance. I play in a recreational summer league too.
Anime: I like all kinds of different anime. I am especially partial to Neon Genesis Evangelion and movies by Miyazaki. Check out the links section for more.