I was born in Dallas Texas, and lived there for the first 2 years of my life. My family then moved to Darien Connecticut for a little over a year, and then back to Texas for another 2 years.
Then we moved to Brecksville Ohio (kind of near Cleveland), where I did all my pre-University schooling. I played in the school Orchestra (initially violin, then later String Bass), did cross-country running, and was in the gifted program. Before High School, I made a trip back to Texas every summer to visit family, and my family also went on frequent vacations to a beach in North Carolina. We also saw Jamaica, Niagra Falls, the Grand Canyon, parts of England and France, and a few other places. I became heavily into computers almost from first exposure, programming in IBM Basic around age 8 or 9, and then later x86 assembly and C. I made use of my parents large library to learn about a number of topics, and despite numerous efforts, never developed any appreciable artistic skill. I was into D&D and Magic in High School, and combined with video games, running a BBS, and reading, meant that my parents never had to worry about my staying out late. I made extra money working for a risk management company, the school district, and a small independent telecom company. During this time I was also musically sheltered -- until near the end of High School I didn't enjoy any music apart from Ragtime and Classical. I was sheltered in other ways too -- I didn't date anyone, make out, or have anything but a few crushes on a few other guys and gals during this period in my life. In middle school, I read a children's book on comparitive religion that got me thinking along paths that led me to being an atheist. I came to a political perspective that might be described as proto-moral absolutist-libertarian, and after a discussion with my High School law teacher, who labeled it as such, read more about and adopted said perspective. Between my Junior and Senior years in High School, I was in the Engineering Summer Academy program at Ohio State, and, liking the campus, decided to attend University there.
University was, as with most people, an eye-opening experience. The person I wanted to room with didn't end up attending OSU, so I was randomly assigned a roomate who, despite initially seeming cool, proved to be neurotic, smelly, and aggrevating. During my first year, in math class, I met August, with whom I went to Anime club, and who later started Students for Freethought, an atheist/agnostic group. For my second year, I arranged to be in a different room, and eventually the roomate from hell was booted from the suite by a concerted effort from the other suitemates. During this period, I had a very brief, first relationship. When summer came, I moved out of the dorms, first living in a small room in an apartment building with a former suitemate, and then in the basement of a student communal house. For fall, I found a nice apartment that I stayed in for the rest of my time as a student. SFF started in the fall, and I began to attend, meeting a number of people with similar and more elaborated views on religion, philosophy, and science. SFF rapidly became my primary social circle (and still, when it comes to Columbus people, is a big part of my social self).
One's first serious relationship changes everything. In SFF, I met Martha Knox, cigar-smoking artist, fiery liberal, and writer. She made me examine my (at the time libertarian relativist) ideas more deeply, introduced me to the local art scene, and dragged me out of the bubble I had been living in. We went to opera, New York, and got a cat (Wally). Things, unfortunately, didn't last, and I was left with depression with little more than Wally to keep me company.
I started hanging out at a local, 24-hour coffeeshop called Insomnia beginning at this time. Having left SFF to avoid emotionally painful encounters with Martha, I met a few new friends here, and eventually reconnected with a number of others who had left SFF for one reason or another, along with people from the local art scene. With Jason, I started having long discussions on politics, and eventually began to go to Outland, a Goth/Industrial club, most weekends. With others, I joined a small philosophy group that met at Town Addiction, a deli/coffeeshop downtown, and began regularly going to gallery hop, a monthly walk down the Short North area of Columbus through shops/galleries that were kept open for that evening. Graduating from university, I was hit by the dot-com bust, and found it hard to find a job. After about 6 months, my parents, still supporting me, had me move into a smaller house with friends. Not long after, I found a job, and a few months afterwards, moved into a large duplex.
After about a year, and in a different job, I started chatting with someone else on the fringes of the SFF circle, Debb Glosser. Debb is really smart, athletic, and an amazing Scrabble player. Eventually we began to date, but she was soon going back to her hometown of Pittsburgh. I decided to try to follow her, and after a few nervous months, managed to get a job at CMU, moving to Pittsburgh. We dated for two separate periods, with a gap of about 8 months in the middle, but didn't prove to be compatible in some important ways, so we split up. I soon after shifted to the Psychology department in CMU, still doing sysadmin/programming work, but also doing fMRI-based research.
I came to hang out with another social group, Zets, where I met and much later dated Nicole A. Nicole is also smart, a bit into art, and into "upper" culture. She got me into snowboarding and rollerblading, and (partly) ended the vegetarianism that I had adopted while dating Debb. We made a monthlong trip to Europe, but things began to fall apart on that trip and ended with a painful betrayal a few months afterwards.
I still am in Pittsburgh, working for CMU. I've started to go to CMU KGB meetings to make up for having largely left the Zets social circle. This is my life so far..