User Profile

Ok, I'm gonna give this whole journal thing a shot. I don't write enough as it is, but a journal could be fun. However, I'm going to buck convention here a little bit. I'm going to do my best to avoid self-pity, bitching about the opposite gender, endless memes and quizillas, and all the other whining and pointless crap that serve as the backbone for livejournal. Instead, I'm going to actually try to write interesting, entertaining journal entries. Well, every now and then, anyways.

A little background info might be in order... I spent the better part of a decade college- and major-hopping. I did Computer Engineering at Cornell, Computer Science at Fresno State, some general ed for transfer units at Fresno City, and then Creative Writing and English at UC Riverside. Then I went to work in finance and real estate.

For the last two years I've been working full-tilt at learning a new job that has nothing to do with what I learned in college. Although, to be fair, I learned a lot more about barbecuing, margaritas, bartending, and sorrority girls in college than I did about literature or computer science. But I actually enjoy what I do now, and it's quite challenging. I find myself doing everything from land aquisition to sales and marketing, from finance and cash-flow projections to attending city council meetings and submitting tentative subdivision map applications. Of course, it doesn't hurt that I'm overpaid. =)

But what I do has little connection to my real interests. I love fantasy and sci-fi (I've read so much of it that, when I donated some old paperbacks to my highschool, it became the "Chris Hempel Science Fiction Collection") and I admit to nerddom. I play computer games (mainly massive online role-playing games, like World of Warcraft), write the occasional intro our outline of a short story (rarely actually write the story, but hey, that's life), and generally dink around online whenever the oppertunity presents itself. However, I also love to barbecue and bartend, and have small gatherings playing drinking jenga and Landmine as often as my liver permits. I can make the best damn peach margarita around, and Vegas is like a second home to me (although the extent of my gambling is playing video poker).

I use this journal as something between a creative outlet, a place to rant, and a way to keep in touch with some friends and to monitor what they've been up to. I'll do my best to avoid wallowing in self-pity or lamenting life's cruelties, which could be a stark contrast to many LJ's I've read. =)

So this is my journal. I've got a few of what I consider to be my more entertaining pieces marked in Memories, but for the most part, I just update this thing a few mornings a week when the boss isn't looking over my shoulder, and I want to fill some time. Between this and instant messenger programs, Monday mornings become somewhat tolerable. =)

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