Why in the world are you looking here?!? You're probably a dedicated hard working student who went out in search of chaos theory. Maybe you thought this was a page about how the original chaos matrix was formed. Were you lured here with key words like celestial body or super symmetry? Well, you're at the wrong place!

This is a place to help answer important questions! Here are just a few quick questions and answers to help get you started.

1. Who is this guy? Obviously, it's Jordan.
2. Is he really a lot smarter than me? Not really, but he likes to think so.
3. Was Galileo wrong? Does the world really revolve around him? There's currently a discussion in the scientific community. We'll get back to you.

The "Formative" Years

This is how you put the rest of the page in context. I know when I hit other people's random personal pages I go to the bio to get a good base-line for the rest of the site.

I was born and raised in Sacramento, CA, way back in the late seventies.

I have one older brother who always tries to be like me. I grew hippy hair, then he followed suit. I made a website, then he followed suit. I cut my hair. He cut his hair. I got a job at a consulting company, then he got a job at a consulting company. It's hard being the trend setter.

Teen Angst

I went to public school up until I decided it was high time for an all-boys catholic high school. I would say my parents raised me as religiously apathetic and agnostic. Eight straight years in a Catholic school didn't change that but it instilled some Catholic morality in me that some other poor boy who's actually Catholic should have. I spent most of my teenage years playing RPGs with my high school and drinking coffee with my geeker friends.

Here are some important terms for non-geekers:

• geeker: a modem geek. One who spends long amounts of time communicating on BBSes
• BBS: Buletin Board System. Before the internet was popular, these little things flourished. They were mostly local to communities and thus the people on them met all the time IRL. Often meetings were at MUPTs or CiTs.
• IRL: In Real Life
• MUPT: Modem User Pizza Thingy
• CiT: Coffee in Ten. Generally the message would appear like so: "CiT! Java City, 18th & Capital." Ten minutes later, there were thirty people there. Only the gimps wouldn't show up.
• gimp: A lame person.

I really didn't do a lot beyond role playing and geeker events. That was more than enough to keep me busy. Plus I was in the pep-band during the school year which put me at every basketball and football game. Plus I was in the orchestra which meant nighttime practice with our sister school all the time. So I was a busy boy. My senior year I carried a couple clean sets of clothes in my car. I never knew where I would wake up on Saturday or Sunday morning.

I event got myself a varsity letter. Below is my varisity letter. I also placed my two departmental awards, my outstanding spririt award (I remaind the only person to win that award for two years) and a diploma. I used to be smart.

University

Right at the start of college was when I developed "chronic Jordan syndrome." It started two weeks before I left for school and went downhill from there. The major symptoms of CJS include massive weight loss, fatigue and insomnia. How massive? I dropped from 138 to less than 100 pounds in the course of three months. That's massive.

It destroyed my relationship at the time. It lowered my GPA (all those damn B's!). It caused everyone in my family to worry sick over me. It put my in the hospital for a couple weeks. That was my only hospitalization from CJS. Hospitals are interesting places. We tend to be there at the start and the end of ours lives.

Then I spent four years at Santa Clara University in the lovely city of Santa Clara where I received my degree in Mathematics and Computer Science. I worked for housing for three years, being a resident assistant for two of them. Out of everything I miss from school, it's residence hall life (dorm life for the rest of you). I loved having a hundred "friends" right outside my door, but also the ability to close and lock my door and pretend I wasn't there. It was the best of everything.

I made three cliques of friends in high school years, but none in the college years. I have a bunch of individual friends from college, but no coherent groups of friends that I like. I find that tragic.

Was I in a fraternity? Wasn't everyone! Π Μ Ε forever!

Geek Code

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12 GM/CS/E/MC d--(+) s:- a- C++++(++)$ U++(++++)$ P+++$ L+(--) !E W+++$ N+ o? K+ w++ O+(+++) M++ V+ PS++@ PE-@ Y+ PGP++ t+ 5++ X R tv b++ DI++ D++ G e++ h- r++ y?> ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

Music (Secrets of the Self)

I sometimes get comments about the mystical always-playing (did you notice how I hyphenated that to make it an adjective?) radio in my bathroom. I also have the stereo in my main room and another two radios in my bedroom. There's nearly always music playing somewhere in my little domicile.

My favorite music out there is the subtle melodies of the female artist. That includes bands like The Murmurs, Cardigans, etc. I also have what I consider to be a bizarre devotion of the music produced by female teenage pop stars (Britney, Hilary, etc.). Still, The Murmurs are amazing. I spent so much time in the middle of the night near the little fountain at Santa Clara listening to them.

Of course, one cannot forget The Archive . Which is the giant collection of MP3s based from anime, console games and J-Pop. Man that's good stuff.

I used to play music quite a lot. I was in the school band from second grade all the way through graduation from college. Alas, I then set aside my saxophone to gather dust. I put it together a few times a year now and play for a bit, but my embouchure (n. the manner in which the lips and tongue are applied to a mouthpiece) is horrible and mouth is just throbbing by the end of the ordeal.

I play my harmonica more often, but I'm substantially worse.

Television (The Devil's Tool)

I haven't had cable since I left SCU. I'm grateful. I don't think there's anything on television I like anymore. I watch Frontline and Nova which is brought to you by members like me.

Books (Words that Stay)

"There is no greater pleasure in life than picking up an old dusty book and reading it over and over again." - Eric Idle

My favorite series of books was the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. My other favorite series is by Orson Scott Card consisting of Ender's Game through Children of the Mind.

My grandfather has been purchasing my a large number of math and science oriented books recently, and they're great. You're never too old to learn, and there are some truly wonderful pieces of work out there written by great authors.

My buddy Tim recently commented that I read some "weird stuff." I can categorize it pretty well. I've always got a some sort of science fiction book going on. I generally tend to also have a freaky mathematical/science book given to me by my grandfather. I also have a "classic" book on my PDA downloaded from project Guttenburg. So, one "normal" book, and two stranger ones.

Sports

If it involves being pulled behind a boat on a rope. I do it and love it.