User Profile

Myers Briggs fans out there can look me up as an INTP. My formal stance on the MBTI is that it's a bunch of pseudo-scientific nonsense in the same vein as horoscopes. But... there's something eerily accurate about it. http://www.personalitypage.com/INTP_rel.html and http://www.personalitypage.com/INTP.html are pretty good. Of course I like to think I have none of the weaknesses and all of the strengths, but reality is somewhere in the middle.

To summarize:
I'm a generally laid back guy. I don't really open up readily, but when I do make good friends they're important to me and I'd do almost anything to help them out. I don't get along well with outspoken closed-minded people who think they know how others should live their lives. If I had to pick a political classification for myself I'd say I'm a Libertarian or classical liberal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism). I spend a lot of time thinking, so it's easy for people to make the assumption that I'm ignoring them. I live a pretty quiet life, and I'm not at all interested in clubbing or the trendy scene. I'm not religious, but I have a strong sense of morality. I try to live my life so that I'll have no regrets. I'd prefer to have a clear conscience and some good friends than a Mercedes and a McMansion. I like the un-selfconscious nature and simplicity of children. Watching them dance at a concert in a park makes me laugh. I like dogs, but not little yappy rat-dogs. I'd like to get a golden retriever puppy, but as a single working professional I'm not sure that would be responsible.

For years I've been stuck in a relatively academics/work-focused mindset, to the exclusion of social activities or dating. It's hard to make plans when there's a 50/50 chance you'll be working all weekend. I was so focused on working that I never even realized that my life was missing something. I've recently switched jobs to have a much more regular schedule and moved to Sunnyvale, CA. I suddenly found myself with a lot of newfound free time for reflection, and I broke out of that intensely focused mode of living that I had been in. Maybe you can call it a premature mid-life crisis.

What I'd like to do in the next six months:
1) Get out more, make some new friends, join some clubs.
2) Be more active. I bought a state park pass and I'm planning on going to a new park every Sunday to hike around.
3) Get a "real" camera and learn some of the basics of photography.
4) Perfect my mead recipe.
5) Read more.
6) Get a puppy! Name him Baxter. Train him to play frisbee and take him for walks every night.
7) Relearn the piano.


Some Movies I Enjoy:
Shaun of the Dead
Spaceballs
UHF
Office Space
Apocalypse Now
Godfather 1 & 2
The Usual Suspects
City of God
The Shawshank Redemption

Music I like - this is easier to do if I say what music I DISLIKE...
I don't like most country
I don't like most soft rock
I don't like most rap/hiphop
I can't stand Bruce Springsteen or Steely Dan.

Just about every other genre I've heard has its good songs and its bad songs. What I want to listen to at any given time really depends on what my mood is. I've recently found myself listening to a lot of old school AC/DC. When I'm at my computer I'll listen to KCRW's stream through itunes.

Books I'm reading:
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (again)

Books I've read this year:
Nine Stories (short stories by Salinger)
Julius Caesar (shakespeare)
Red Mars
probably some more that I've forgotten. none of them were particularly good.

Books I'd like to (re-)read:
The Iliad
Grapes of Wrath

I don't watch TV any more, but back when I did I watched:
The Colbert Report
Simpsons
Family Guy
Survivorman
Science/nature documentaries
Battlestar Galactica (the new one)

Some other miscellaneous things I'd like to do:
Write a journal of my voyage out to California. This was a spiritual journey just as much as it was a physical one. It was a shift in mindset, and a move away from all the things I disliked about my life in Minnesota. It was also, unfortunately, a move away from the people in my life that I care about. Jon and Jade that includes you. You're the two people I really think of as true friends who I could talk about anything with. I hope that our distance doesn't damage that.

Discover more crazy things to do! I want to see every single park around here. I want to charter a boat and sail for a weekend. I want to go camping in the mountains. I want to trade in my lame Explorer for a convertible, or maybe a motorcycle. I want to write poetry. I want to study film. I want to explore the parts of the human condition that I've been ignoring for so long.

I want to ride in a drag race car - the kind that shoot fire out the sides and go 0-200 in about three seconds flat.

I want to learn to play chess. I want to read philosophy. I want to learn a random language. I want to study history. I want to understand more about the world.
I want to live fully.

Friends (4):

Friend of (4):