Prior to Career 2.0, I spent about 10 years working as a geologist/environmental mercenary for a couple of moderately disfunctional environmental consulting companies. People often look at me strangely when I say that I'm a geologist - it's like they expect me to be walking around carrying a rock hammer and compass looking for fossils. (not that I wouldn't enjoy doing that...) Really, what I like to do is walk around with a hammer and compass looking for information about the igneous and metamorphic crystallization and structural deformation of rocks. Oh, with a beer in my hand.

Now that I'm on career 2.0, I usually don't get to play with rocks. I'm a Blackberry Bitch to the Stars, and Desktop Management Dude at Brown University, my alma mater. Pretty damn cool, if you ask me.

How does one become a geologist? Not that many people know that geology is their destiny... most of us have an 'ephiphany' story. Since I was 3 years old, I've been a science geek. At four, I was going to be an astronomer, and was really into the H.A. Rey book, Stars. When I was seven, visiting my grandparents in Florida, I gave up a day at Disney World to go to Cape Canaveral. Science was my calling, except for a period around 1982-1983 when I wanted to go into economics (it was the height of the Reaganomics years, and I had my own paper route). By high school, I thought I was going to be a doctor... I took the med-bio course at Cumberland High, and was primed for a future in medicine or optometry. That is, until a muggy August night in 1989, when I got up at 3 AM to look at my college course catalog, and decided to take Geology 22, the intro course for science concentrators. This was the semester of the San Francisco/Loma Prieta earthquake, and I vividly remember Terry Tullis coming into class the next day with the seismographs fresh off the fax from Harvard. Channel 12 News was taping the class, and Terry was gung-ho, "My students come first, keep the camera out of the way" (or something like that). I think that day sealed my fate... I switched concentrations shortly afterwards.

I spent my college days at Brown University here in Providence. I still live within a mile of campus, literally "down the hill" from my senior-year apartment. Providence is a great city (I've been here for years) - there's plenty to do, and it isn't as annoying as Boston or New York. My parietal lobe contains more information regarding my formative years here, and cool stuff to do in Rhode Island.

Other stuff worth mentioning:

I've lost 20 pounds since New Years' 1999.  I don't expect to find them again.  I'm looking significantly more svelte than I do in the above picture.

I got up at the crack of dawn and took a vacation day just to buy Phantom Menace tickets; we ended up getting tickets to the second (12:30 AM) show.

I recently bought a new hybrid bike - I've gotten in much better shape this summer - my longest ride is up to 60 miles now, and I'm thinking of doing the  Boston - New York AIDS Ride with my cousin next summer.

I've been lucky to take awesome vacations in Alaska and Nova Scotia the last two summers.

Last summer, I had a chance to sail on a 12-meter yacht as part of a fundraiser for the Leukemia Society of America.

My brother works at the Duke University Primate Center, and likes it.

What else should I tell you?

I'm a real klutz.
I'm not the world's best housekeeper, but I can cook when I have to.

If you have any comments, drop me a line.