What would anyone do without great friends?
These are some of the people who are important to me. Each has influenced me in some way, in all cases in important ways. While you may not be fortunate enough to know any or all of them, you can at least catch a glimpse.
Click a picture to find out more about that person.
Lisa is my companion in the wilds of Chicago, in fact, she's my wife. She is also a very talented writer, with an increasing number of essays and fiction available from her web site, appearing in On a Whim, the literary magazine she started. You can find work by many other people on this page there.
She is sweet, adorable, sharp, funny, and more. She’s also an avid reader, ruthless (at times) cribbage player, and a lover of dogs. She is to be loved, and I do.
Paul is a kindred spirit. He plays saxophone, bass, and keyboards, and makes music in his home studio. When we were in college, we played in a band called Stick Figure. He and Brendan have some electronica they’re peddling on MP3.com under the name Moon Tower. He lives in Seattle now, where he’s making music and maybe working sometimes. An avid reader, skilled programmer, and great musician; you can’t help but love him.
Brendan plays guitar. He and I have played together in various settings, although it’s been an increasingly long time since the last session. He is a well-spoken gentleman with interests in books, movies, music, and tons more. My work with him is among the most precious I’ve done. He lives in Seattle, teaching guitar and playing in bands with friends he’s had forever.
Brian and I share a lot in common: love of music, technology, basketball, and for a while, a house. We’ve played music together, and have performed improvised comedy together lots of times. He’s now working on Ph.D. in artificial intelligence at the University of Michigan. He’s a social animal. Check him out.
Lis is a writer, lyricist, guitarist, singer, wonderwoman type. I was in her band for a year or so, and we did a CD together. If you visit her website, you can listen to some tracks from it, and buy a copy. It’s good, don’t worry.
She has a design firm called SpinEpiphany, a record label called Erlandahle, and an employee named Ami. And if you believe that…
LisHarvey.com
GiantPOG.com (coming soon)
Henele is a mysterious creature who was my roommate for a couple years. His boyish charm and shy nature bely a very active mind. He has earned three degrees (so far) from CMU, and continues to work there at the Robotics Institute, figuring out how to make computers see. He plays flute and piano, writes code, swims, cooks, and more. He makes me wish I were a better woman.
I met Dave after a play called Snapshots freshman year of college, where I had seen him do some of the funniest improv I had seen. Dave is a lovely person, with a brilliant sense of humor, a brilliant mind, and brilliant white teeth. He and I lived together for a couple years, and now he lives out in the Bay Area working for ILM. Beware.
Dave has no web presence, more’s the pity
Called Sheby by many, he is a sound engineer both in training and by trade. He lives in Pasadena, where he got his master’s degree at USC. He now works in digital cinema, working on the way a few movies are digitally delivered to theaters; soon that will be the way all of them go. He comes in contact with the stars almost everyday. Be sure to watch for his strawberry blonde booty coming to a theater near you.
The Artzman drummeth, as some have said. Andy was the first drummer I met when moving to Pittsburgh. He and I played together in the CMU jazz ensemble for a while, as well as on other small projects. He has finally finished up at CMU, and is playing drums and doing engineering in the mighty midwest.
No web presence yet
Craig and I lived together for a few years during college. As members of the 8 or 10 person strong cognitive science contingent at CMU, we took several classes together and hung out a lot. He is responsible for some of the funniest things I’ve ever heard and seen. He also took several of the photos that appear on this page. He’s working on a Ph.D. in psychology at UC Davis. He watches a lot of movies, so many that he built a web site for his (and his friends’) favorites. That site is now hosted here.
Ross is good. Real good. He codes, he cooks, he talks, he listens, he dyes his hair. Someday when he’s a millionaire philanthropist, I’ll have some faith that the world’s money is finally falling in the right hands. He also has a lot of monkeys.
There, Ross’s current employer (yes, it’s real)
Marnie wants you to know that you are not the boss of me! She is a great woman, with a spectacular sense of humor and big heart. If you ask nicely, she may even tell you about her travels to Costa Rica, future travels to Ireland, and if you ask even nicer, how to cook a steak.
Mary is a great lover of the world and its inhabitants. She is a wonderful person, dancer, ecologist, artist, and chemistry aficionado. She has a dance studio in Asbury Park, New Jersey, and is a teacher at a charter school in the area, showing kids how to express themselves through dance and other artistic means.
She has a small selection of her work in pastels available at portfolios.com. It doesn’t represent the full range of her abilities, but it does begin to demonstrate her skill.
evan and I have talked at length about lots of things over the years, from phish to friends to computing. An actor, a programmer, and sometimes bass player, evan also doesn’t capitalize any letters. Now working at Zoesis, he is working on creating believable virtual characters. Their name should start to become bigger in the not-too-distant future. He is one of two people I know who has studied Spanish in Guatemala.
Mary Paterno is an inspiration. We went to high school together, acted in plays and played music together. She went to BU, studied voice and collaborative piano, then moved to Arizona to study musicology, but ended up a certified EMT and aerobics instructor, and is on her way to being a doctor. Not too bad for someone who’s barely in her mid-twenties.
She’s a great friend, and a lovely person. I’m getting a little impatient waiting for her to turn 35 so she can run for president. She is one of two people I know who have learned to speak Spanish in Guatemala.
No web presence yet
Stephanie and I graduated high school together, and have kept in touch ever since. A sweetheart if there ever was one, she lives in Vermont with her husband Morgan, and is currently peddling her wares as an information specialist: librarian and web designer. Her advice to you: don’t work at the New York Public Library. (Steph’s on the right; Kelly, another high school friend, is on the left)
