About Me

I am beginning this blog under the most pretentious and narcissistic of intentions: people have told me that I have interesting thoughts which should be shared and I am naive and vain enough to believe them.  This is not an attempt to gain your trust through self-abasement, simply a feeble attempt at honesty, one which I hope you will appreciate and not come to expect.

Those who know me have formed their own opinions of me, those of you who don't know me personally will form your own opinions of me once I post a few things.  I will try to only list facts and then let you form your own opinion of me.

I am from a small town (Quakertown, PA) located 46.9 miles (as googlemaps flies) north of Philadelphia.  My ancestors, The Schwenkfelders, landed in Philly in the 1730s, the vast majority of the family still exists in the 49 miles between Quakertown and Philly.  I have two younger brothers and five first-cousins.

My parents are proud, right-wing, conservative, born-again Christians that are deeply embedded in a church they began attending a few months before I was born and have never left.  I attended every service there until I was 18, often at the expense of extra-curricular activities: Sunday morning, Sunday School (after the service), Sunday night prayer meeting, choir, Tuesday morning Ladies Bible Study (I was homeschooled [that bomb shell is right around the corner, keep reading]), Wednesday night AWANA as a kid and Teens for Christ as a teen, work days, game nights, movie nights, bible studies, small groups.  If the doors were open, we were there.

I attended Kindergarten and my parents decided that was all the public education I would ever need, I was homeschooled till I graduated high school in 2004.

I raised Seeing Eye Puppies and became the president of the local chapter of the Bucks County 4-H Seeing Eye Puppy Club.

Both of my grandfathers served in the US Navy and I believed this to be my calling as well.  I applied for Navy ROTC and discovered Point Loma Nazarene University where I decided to attend college.

Now it gets interesting, hold on for this next part, I beg your pardon for all inclusions and omissions.

I dropped out of NROTC.  I ran out of money.  I moved home after one semester at PLNU.  I fell in love, I fell out of love.  I worked odd jobs.  I attended three semesters of community college, failed about half those classes.  I visited Romania and nearly married a Romanian girl.  I returned to San Diego on Sept. 1, 2006.  I attended SD City College for a semester.  I returned to PLNU in January 2007.  I became roommates with Nahshon Landrum.  I switched majors.  I broke up with the Romanian.  I fell in love with my best friend.  My classmates graduated in May 2008; I didn't.  I walked in May 2009 but didn't graduate.  I joined the ranks of the unemployed.  I returned to PLNU to finish the steps needed to become a licensed elementary teacher in California.

Those six years look so simple when condensed to one paragraph.  Sigh.  Moving on.

I am an avid sports fan, mostly living and dying with every move made by the Phillies, Eagles, Penn State Football, and Big 5 Basketball.  I played baseball in rec leagues from the time I was in t-ball (5 yrs old) till I was 20.  I wasn't very good, but my little brother is my pride and joy and I take credit for all his accomplishments (NCAA D-3 All-Academic, team captain, BBC 2009 Pitcher of the Year).

I like most types of music and pass judgement only on music which lacks artistic value.  This becomes terribly subjective but there are only a couple artists/bands you will never hear me say bad things about.  I like for music to take me somewhere; whether it's forward, backward, to a happy or sad place I'm not really picky, it's just gotta move me.  Again, quite subjective.  I'd rather hear an old song taken to a new place then a new song trying to meet me where I am.  I have a discerning ear that makes it difficult for me to enjoy music sometimes.  More to follow.

At times this blog will be difficult to follow for the following reasons (among others):

1) I am not a good writer; I do not claim to be.  You will be privy to my lack of writing ability and my love of semi-colons; I use semi-colons more than I should and not always appropriately.
2) Compounding the fact that I am a bad writer is the fact that I am almost entirely left-brained and write mostly in stream of consciousness then do my best to edit my random thoughts.  To combat these problems I suggest you read as though I am reading to you.  I find that I need to hear my voice reading my writings in order to understand them.  I write conversationally (though I do try to write in a slightly more formal manner) so it's best if you "hear" my voice saying my words.  If your inner narrator/orator is Morgan Freeman, Barack Obama, or Dane Cook you may be in trouble, we do not use the same emphasis nor cadence.  For those of you who do not know the sound of my voice, I am sorry, I'll do my best.
3) I will discuss things that make sense to me.
4) I will get lazy and not update.
5) I've been told that I and my closest friends have a very exclusive and intricate series of inside jokes that alienate people.  Most of these are derived from our favorite tv shows and movies.  If you aren't familiar with Arrested Development, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, or 30 Rock you are behind the 8 ball, just Google whatever you don't understand or ask me and I'll be more than happy to explain.

If you want to know anything else just ask me, I don't really believe in dishonesty or secrecy and I love talking about myself so I will most likely give you a truthful, detailed (though likely not concise) answer.