the question is: who made this and why?

“I’m writing ‘young and gifted’ in my autobiography / I figure, who would know, better than me?”
—Sloan

who?

I’m just this guy, you know?

I spent my first 24 years in the fine state of Wisconsin. I grew up a city kid, walking to school in Milwaukee. At my home state’s flagship university in Madison, I learned much about graphic design, politics, how to have a social life, and how to properly imbibe various kinds of intoxicating beverages (via trial and error). I learned enough about politics to swear it off as a possible career, and enough about graphic design to get a decent job.

In 1999, for some reason, I left that perfectly good job, apartment, and group of friends behind and spent three cold years in Minnesota. (Okay, I moved there for a girl.) There, I had my first canvassing job and my first and maybe only government job. In August 2002, I left that perfectly good job behind and moved to California. (That second rash act, at least, was the end of that pattern and not the beginning.)

Since November 2002, I have been more or less gainfully employed by a California-based political environmental group that happens to be regulated by Section 501(c)(4) of the United States Internal Revenue Code (as if you care about that). My responsibilities have grown fairly steadily during that time; now I am vaguely described as “Communications Manager,” which boils down to web and print design, lots of web back-end stuff, writing, editing, and project management.

I am a sports fan from a long line of sports fans. I love baseball, but I like football, too. On and off throughout my adulthood, I’ve toyed around with the idea of not following sports; I certainly don’t pore over as many stats or watch as many games as I used to, but I do go to more than 25 major league baseball games a year. (It’s really relaxing.) I also get to play baseball, strictly for fun, on Sundays.

Listening to music (both live and recorded) and slowly learning to play guitar (left-handed) also rank high on my list of hobbies. I have to say I like TV — good TV, mostly. I have dabbled with the idea of writing, if not the practice. My favorite expensive hobby is traveling; I’ve been everywhere, man. Not really, but I’ve been out of the country a couple times.

I ride trains, buses, and two-wheeled conveyances. I am a skilled but infrequent operator of motor vehicles, so long as they don’t require me to do something so obsolete as to manually shift gears. In the summer of 2003, I sold the 1.7-ton monster in which I moved myself to the west coast. (I have seldom looked back in regret at that transaction.) In return, I received the euphoria of being debt-free (for at least a little while).

Also, on July 22, 2011, I met the love of my life! Her name is Dawn, and she is the best, and she is going to marry me in 2013, and that is awesome!

Other essentially useless information, for identification purposes only:

• Hometown: Milwaukee, Wisconsin, also home of the second-largest four-faced clock tower in the world.
• Myers-Briggs type: Usually ENFJ with some introverted tendencies from time to time.
• Eye color: can only be described as “bluish-grayish, with one appearing slightly greener than the other, likely due to the presence of slightly more brown.”
• Favorite Simpsons quote: [Teen 1] “Oh look, the cannonball guy, he’s cool.” [Teen 2] “Are you being sarcastic, dude?” [Teen 1] “I don’t even know anymore.”
• Number of parenthetical expressions on this page: thirteen (including this one, and that’s down from a record nineteen the last time I rewrote this).

If you got this far, you might also be interested to know that in the beginning of 2010, one of the most important years in my life so far, I contacted Kaiser Permanente to be treated for depression. Happily, the years since have been far better than many of the prior years. In my recovery from depression (which is a serious problem), I stopped identifying with the labels “lazy,” “untidy,” and “irritable,” among others; and, crucially, I replaced my automatic negative thoughts about myself with compassion, love, and forgiveness.

why?

Ours not to reason why; ours but to do and die.

* * *

If that’s not enough for you (and I admire your sticktoitiveness and your bizarre level of interest in me), there is at least a little more in this site’s wonderful introduction. When I say “wonderful,” I literally mean “filled with wonders.”