I’ve got a bunch of stuff on this blog showing my work and my experience, but nothing that tells you about me. So here we go:
I’m a writer, illustrator and designer and I live in Charlotte, NC. I come from a Navy family so I grew up all over the country, but my wife and I are calling Charlotte our home. I work for a twice weekly business newspaper as a reporter during the day, and by night I’m the creative director for Toot Your Town. I’m hustling hard to eventually become a full-time author-illustrator. I’ve had two books published by two different nonprofit organizations, and I hope to have my first commercially published book out in 2010.
In my free time (when I have some that is) I enjoy hanging out with my amazing wife Brooke and our goofy bulldog Berkeley, writing, illustrating and reading (duh), and playing video games.
My favorite books:
Life of Pi, Frankenstein, The Harry Potter Series, His Dark Materials series, The Giver, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal, everything by Shel Silverstein, Dragonfly, On Writing, ‘Salem’s Lot, The Stand, Searching For God Knows What, and a whole lot more…
My favorite movies:
O Brother Where Art Thou?, Spider-Man 1 and 2, Forrest Gump, all the Pixar movies, the first Matrix, a bunch of the Bond movies, Dumb and Dumber, Waterboy, Lilo & Stitch, Stranger Than Fiction
My favorite music:
Regina Spektor!!! Also, Jack Johnson, Lenny Kravitz, Relient K, Jay-Z, and pretty much anything else that isn’t country or heavy metal.
My favorite TV shows:
The Office, 30 Rock, Scrubs, Spongebob, Lost, SNL, Dirty Jobs
My favorite games:
Prince of Persia (the original PC game),Super Mario Land (Gameboy), Aladdin (Genesis), Metal Gear Solid (Playstation 1) Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (Xbox), Psychonauts (Xbox), Shadow of the Colossus (Playstation 2), Mass Effect (Xbox 360), Assassin’s Creed (Xbox 360)
And now, 25 random things about me:
1. Sometimes I get paid to play video games, and most of the time it’s as fun as it sounds.
2. I’ve competed in three different talent shows in my life and I regret them all. In 8th grade I played the Charlie Brown song (dressed in a Charlie Brown shirt), and was forced to forfeit any cool points I had accumulated. In college, I rapped in two talent shows…yeah.
3. I sometimes forget that most people are uncomfortable with large quantities of slobber getting on them. After a year with a bulldog, I’m pretty sure everything in my house is at least 20 percent slobber.
4. I was one of the few men in the theater at the Twilight premiere that had read the books. For the record, I thought the books and the movie were okay…I’ve moved on, my wife has not.
5. I taught speech at Harding University for a year. Turns out I really enjoy teaching college students. I think I might give it another go someday.
6. If I ever meet Regina Spektor in person, there’s a good chance I’ll embarrass myself.
7. I write for a business newspaper and I know nothing about business. I’m learning a lot.
8. My wife is an amazing communicator. She helped me be a better speech teacher, a better friend, and a better person.
9. I have always wanted to skateboard. I tried to get the hang of it once at age 12 and again at 20. It’s not for me.
10. My dream is to own a big home with a guest house in the back that I can use as my office. I would get up every morning and “go to work” with my bulldog and write books for people to enjoy.
11. I’m a middle child, and my two brothers are my best friends. I love and admire them both.
12. I like to watch shows about convicts.
13. Brooke got me a one year subscription to Ultimate Spider-Man as a wedding gift before we got hitched four years ago.
14. When I was in high school I worked as an intern for public affairs at the Charleston Air Force base. I was assigned to take pictures of George Dubya when he arrived on base. A secret service agent gave me a matchbook from Air Force One; it was sea-foam green and had a gold presidential seal on it. I left it in my pocket, and then washed those pants.
15. I have several good friends that I have never met in person.
16. I love mythology. Whether it’s Greek, Roman, Hindu, Indian, American, Japanese, or Celtic, they are all connected in one way or another. How is that not fascinating?
17. Because I can’t convert kilometers to miles, I ran eight miles instead of three while training for my first half-marathon. I hate math.
18. I think I’d be a pretty good stand-up comic and/or a voice actor. I plan on trying one or both of those things sometime in my life.
19. When we lived in Virginia, my brothers and I invented a game called Slugs. We each got in our sleeping bags head first, and then blindly slid down the stairs on our bellies in a race to the bottom. I’m not sure our parents knew about that.
20. My wife can throw harder, faster, and farther than I can.
21. I have a no-vomit streak of 13 years and counting.
22. Everyone has an ugly phase in life. Mine started in seventh grade, and continued through my freshman year of high school, where I somehow managed to look exactly like Harry Potter, thank God he wasn’t around then.
23. I voted for Barak Obama. No, I don’t want to argue about politics, ever.
24. Apparently I’m a lot like my dad.
25. I grow facial hair like a Chia Pet. For the past year or so I’ve gone with a very close cropped beard. I’m not going to lie; it’s a glorious beard. It kind of makes up for all that reading, writing, and video game nerd stuff. At least that’s what I tell myself.
