That's me trying to climb a rock. I was born in 1977, and raised in a small town in Pennsylvania. It's a beautiful area, but the cold winters necessitate a bothersome high-calorie diet. So as a young adult, I made a point to travel around for a few years until something stuck. Since 2001 I've been stuck in the San Francisco Bay area.

Parts of '99 and '98 found me in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan. New York city is a little colder than my home town, but this doesn't account for how much I disliked it. I premiered a short brass quartet at the 19th American Festival of Microtonal Music.

The first half of '98 was my initial sojourn to the bay area. I was lured by Norman Henry and his 11-limit harpsichord. I also met cool cats Bob Cowart and Stephen Malinowski.

I was introduced to Norman by Denny Genovese, who was my music teacher in Gainesville, FL in 1997. With his help I built a table-top electric slide guitar, which I tune in 15-limit just intonation. The instrument is almost meeting its design goal of pacifying me until I can obtain a suitable generalized keyboard.

In '96-95 I was an undergraduate in cognitive science at Indiana University. Analysis showed a poor return on my lifetime investment in school, and two semesters in Bloomington gave no sign of improvement. So I left. Adam Barker and Andrew Koontz-Garboden are two swell chaps I keep in touch with to this day.

I went to IU to pursue a model of cognition, inspired by Marvin Minsky and IU's own Doug Hofstadter. There's been a lot of exciting work in the field since then.

One thing sorely lacking in most modern institutions is a good choir. An exception to this was my high school, with its "A" choir, led by the amazing Richard Lampe. I was also lucky to be involved with the Lansdale chapter of the Barbershop society (SPEBSQSA) in '97-96.

Besides Barbershop, I quite like the music of Bach, Beethoven, Harry Partch, the band Yes, various flavors of bebop, and traditional chamber music of the near-East. Check out my favorite composers and albums.

My interest in music started early, partly because my grandmother was a piano teacher. I didn't learn to appreciate visual art until much later. M.C. Escher and Roger Dean were first to catch my eye. In '96 I found Estonian artist Navitrolla on the web, and in '99 I stumbled into John Ruseau's gallery in Charlottesville, VA to good effect. I got my eye around van Gogh later that year, and in '01 I flipped over Edward Gorey. I finally discovered the power of sculpture in 2004, when I went to burning man for the first time.

I got married in 2005 and became a father the next year. During '06-09 I worked in hardware engineering at Apple. It was an amazing experience. I learned a lot about mechanical engineering, toxicology, and chemistry. But most importantly, I gained insight into the nature of human collaboration.

Recently, I've taken to studying macroeconomics, energy policy, and nuclear engineering – which turn out to be almost the same field...