Where to begin? I guess at the beginning:
I was born in a small, rural village in the 'thumb' of Michigan, a place that I affectionately refer to as "home" regardless of where my travels take me.
As stated, I love to travel. So far, those travels have only taken us through the US but we, my family and I, hope to make it to our ancestral homelands of England, Scotland and Ireland someday. We've been fortunate enough to be able to travel the States while raising our four kids. It's been an enjoyable experience, seeing the majestic beauty of the Appalachians, the warm waters of South Florida, the glorious sunsets and clear night skies of New Mexico and Arizona, the snow-caps and awesome desert terrain of Colorado, the beautiful muddy waters of the great Mississippi River and, where we are currently, the amazing emerald landscapes of the Central Oregon and Northern California regions.
I've recently launched my career as a freelance artist (that goes without saying, actually) and I am a student of web development and computer animation, attending FullSail University Online as a member of the class of 2013. My overall goal is to remain a freelance 3d graphic design artist while expanding into web-based MMO development after my degree program.
My hobbies consist of 3d graphic design, perpetual self-study of physics and philosophy, 3d animation, website development and watching Doctor Who (if that can be a hobby). I love all things sci-fi related and I take most of my inspiration from decades of Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate and Battlestar Galactica and from various authors including Isaac Asimov, Piers Anthony, Gene Roddenberry, Jules Verne and Douglas Adams... to name a few.
As well as the above mentioned authors, I enjoy Charles Dickens, Jack London, Mark Twain, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Louis L'Amour and anyone contributing to the Star Trek and Dick Tracy works.
I fall somewhere between 'geek' and 'nerd' by nature, being more at peace with my surroundings when those surroundings include several computers, a solid internet connection and enough technology to drain the life out of a small power plant. I love most all music, though I'm finding that classic country and 'oldies', genres that I grew up with, are becoming somewhat harder to listen to with new artists reinventing genre's as they pop onto the scene. My fashion style is purely '80's... and there's no changing that! ;)
I'm the typical family guy, preferring to work from home to spend more time with the family than to work away from home. It's stressful, especially with deadlines, three teenaged daughters and virtually no place to find peace beyond the confines of the bathroom which, btw, is not nearly as available as I'd like it to be considering there's four women in the house who seem to share the same desire to spend hours each day on appearance. I'd change nothing, though. I gladly accept the stress of working from home over the 'rat race'.
To effectively answer the question "who am I?", I must concede that most of what I've written is sufficiently unable to define who I truly am, though most of it defines my path in life. To allow a glimpse into my soul and into who I am, you must look through my eyes:
I see humanity as being predominately good, though immensely immature and lacking in concern for its own existence. I see us as being on the verge of coming into our own as a race, not individually by country but with global unity, as we take enormous leaps forward in our understanding of the universe around us and ourselves as we relate to it. I see great potential in everyone, though I recognize certain flaws in social order that prove to restrict much of that potential. I can see an end to the destruction of war someday through the coming together of nations seeking the common goal of expanding our reach into our galaxy, as started by the development of the ISS, ITER and other multinational ventures that are laying the foundation as I write this.
In general, I see us through those proverbial 'rose-colored glasses' and, at my age, I doubt my optimism or perspective will sway. My religious and political views exist around a simple, well known principle: live and let live. Anything or any idea that can justify the death of another is, by default, wrong as I see it.
To sum, this is who I am: A dreamer, a realist and an optimist... three aspects that typically do not exist well together without internal conflict. As being these, I am afforded the rights to ponder a grand future for humanity in general, to strive for betterment at the personal level, to reach for reachable goals and to believe in myself and others even when shortcomings would seek to disprove the validity of doing so.