User Profile

I was born and raised in Camden County, New Jersey as a Lutheran. When I first entered kindergarten, the administrators said that I wasn't ready for school and should be held back yet another year. After two weeks, my kindergarten teacher called my mom and told her that I was ready to read and should be moved to the more advanced class. Insight.

When I was 8 years old, one day I couldn't walk. After many visits to specialists I was diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis (JRA), and as a precaution my mom enrolled me into an art class in case I'd have to give up sports forever - I didn't.

Barring an emergency eye-surgery in 7th grade (trabeculotomy), my Uveitis (diagnosed at age 12) and JRA were controlled with medicine (sometimes highly toxic) and weekly visits to specialists. Everything went pretty well and I was able to play three sports at Triton High (soccer, basketball, baseball/tennis) and was co-valedictorian of my graduating class (2002), but more importantly had a really good time & enjoyed myself, my peers, my teachers & my classes.

Perhaps more important to my personal development, during freshmen year of high school I became interested in the national independent music scene, and started to regularly attend Philadelphia shows by acts such as MxPx and Saves the Day. I also started teaching myself how to play the guitar and to code in HTML and use photo editing software.

This followed from the beginning of my unknowingly search for truth/spirituality/a more open, more caring, more creative community. I read Siddhartha and Ishmael and researched world religions on the internet. In the end, I thought that Unitarian Universalism sounded pretty okay, but that there were still perhaps too many hold-ups leftover from Christianity. At the same time I gave myself a decent internet education on environmental issues and their causes, resulting in a desire to study mechanical engineering in college to enable myself to physically solve these problems.

I chose to go to Boston University because they offered a decent scholarship package, it had an urban campus, an okay engineering school and a wide array of liberal arts in case I changed my mind or wanted to double-major. Alone in a foreign city and saddened by the lack of a challenging curriculum, I was confused and depressed for most of my first two years. These feelings were especially enhanced due to the national insanity sweeping the United States during the Bush administration's march to war against Iraq over dubious Weapons of Mass Destruction claims, and the subsequent invasion and occupation (that continues as of this writing 5-18-06).

A good portion of every day was spent reading multiple news sources all about the political developments around Iraq. I met a girl at the college radio station and we began dating, as well as drinking and smoking marijuana every weekend. I began searching for student groups that understood my search and that were effectively working towards change. I came up empty-handed, though I did start helping out with the literary magazine on campus, shooting creative photography, doing layout and design work, and organizing events.

In the summer, my girlfriend and I took a road trip around the United States, and the clear mono-culture of fast food restaurants and chain stores in every state had a great effect on me. I began reading about organic gardening and sustainability, and started my own vegetable garden at my parents' house in NJ. By the end of the summer I transferred out of Mechanical Engineering, and into an interdisciplinary degree of Political Science, Environmental Science, and Entrepreneurial Business Management, though I transferred back into ME after my Sustainable Development class was cancelled.

I became further involved with on-campus activities, and spent more time in my growing co-dependent relationship with my girlfriend. Living off-campus in Central Square in Cambridge, MA, I first became acquainted with pot-lucks and creating your own entertainment, which would later become my "Sharing Parties" at 74 Ashford. Most of my housemates at Monster Orange House were involved with the 'radical' monthly The Student Underground. It was through interactions with this group and my disappointment at its inability to effectively spread the message to those on the fence, that I started to seek out different approaches, such as running for office.

I was awe-struck by Howard Dean. He had the courage, the values, and the moral underpinnings that brought it all together to share the progressive message with All Americans, not just converted "liberals" and I volunteered to go to door to door in swing states with Americans Coming Together. During this time I was elected to the Executive Board of the Student Union (student government) at Boston University, and Co-chaired the Sustainability Committee and sat on the University-created Environmental Task Force. Neither was wildly successful, though progress was made, and an influential Earth Day Festival was staged, and a Report compiling background info and recommendations from the Task Force was created.

I ran for Vice President of the Student Union for the next year, but half-way through the campaign gave up on the idea that school politics could be effective (especially given the cast of characters), and decided to spend more time on myself during my Senior year of college - a much needed reallocation of attention.

Halfway through Junior year, my girlfriend and I finally freed ourselves of our co-dependant relationship, and I started meeting many more great people and playing music more regularly, often just to play a song for a "Sharing Party" that I had planned, where anyone could share any talent they wished, followed by a big dance party.

Through internet searches, I came across the idea of Permaculture and was immediately enthralled with it's simplicity and potency. I began reading all I could, and planning to spend the rest of my life playing my part in the 'slow, green revolution.'

I met another special person during this time - a younger girl who had been raised on an organic farm whose members focused on perfecting their practical folk arts (weaving, pottery, glass-blowing, carpentry, etc.) I learned a great deal from her about being spontaneous, living guilt and shame free, and more about what it meant to be a feminist, and a human animal.

We mutually parted ways after nearly a year, after the first semester of my Senior year, the same time I was also shedding all on-campus responsibilities in order to figure myself out a bit more. I started studying the The Great Story in order to give myself some sort of cosmic contextual basis for my life and my goals (more info).

I also became aware of my total lack of cultural knowledge about the rest of the planet and simply began studying the geography of the globe through SheppardSoftware.com. At this time, my Senior Design Project began taking up much more of my free time, though I began creating art experiments and posting them around Boston.

Friends (19):

Friend of (14):