Interests

I have several interests and hobbies besides geology. Here are just a few that keep me sane.

Computers and Web Programming

I like to dabble in web design in my spare time. I recently won the 2005 UMD Student Web Design Contest for the website I created for the structural geology class (I TA the lab.) It's a pretty simple site but it makes good use of CSS, is standards compliant, and it doesn't put any significant barriers to accessibility. I entered the website I created for Earth's Dynamic Interior into the 2006 contest but didn't fair as well (which I found surprising because the structure webpage is lame by comparison). I was recently in charge of the UMD Department of Geological Sciences Webpage which makes similar use of CSS and web standards. Last but not least, the UMD Venus lab webpage is up and running! I use Dreamweaver MX to make my webpages making use of site templates and CSS to reduce the workload significantly.

I've recently learned how to program scripts to automate Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator using JavaScript. It's fairly straightforward and is incredibly powerful. I wrote a huge time saving script to process dozens of photomicrographs for my senior thesis and more recently I wrote a script to draw an equal-area stereonet of any size.

My programming arsenal includes: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, VBA, PHP, MySQL, Java, C++, and Unix shell scripting (in OSX)

Juggling

Give me three of just about anything and I will juggle it (I'll try anyway...) It's a hobby I picked up in junior high but became enthusiastic about my sophomore year of undergrad. 4 is the most balls I can juggle at once, sometimes I can pull off a flash of 5 from time to time (a flash is throwing all the balls up and catching them all once.) I can juggle rings, clubs, and fire(!) as well. One day I might post some videos or pictures of juggling here. There are links to some cool juggling websites on my links page.

Entertainment

I love going to the movies (though I haven't been in a long time.) My DVD collection is constantly growing (causing my bank balance to constantly shrink) and includes a variety of genres. Some of my favorites include "Requiem for a Dream" and "Run Lola Run," but I also like silly movies like "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" and the Monty Python movies. I also love to watch Adult Swim on the cartoon network. Futurama is one of my all-time favorite shows and Aqua Teen Hunger Force is hilarious.