Introduction

The goal of this blog is mainly to keep myself on track with my life goals. Included in these are various projects which I will document here. May it also serve to provide some form of expression and the freedom to rant and rave as I see fit.

At the time of this writing, I am 28 years old, married to a lovely, caring, intelligent, passionate, driven woman named Elia who has given me 3 boys, the eldest Lucas (22 mos.) and the twins Ethan and Gavin.

I am currently in a state of slippage, redirection, and melancholly, quite possibly losing my mind, or at least changing it frequently. I am writing my Ph.D. dissertation on my work in physical organic chemistry. Although I have no working title, it's contents will enlighten the reader on the subject of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), specifically my work on the synthesis of a [4.4.4]Starphene as well as DFT calculations of large substituted acenes and a correlation of their HOMO-LUMO energy gap with their apparent photo-oxidative resistance (air-stability).

I used to be a musician; unafraid of expression, writing frequently, practicing often. I would like to restart the process: write, practice, record, learn.

I have a bit of a fancy for beer. I know, a bit 'cliche' whilst still in graduate school but I assure you I never completely went "off the deep end" by growing a full beard, touring breweries whenever possible just for free samples and turning my nose up at the award winning Pabst Blue Ribbon (their mommy put the blue ribbon ON THE CAN!)....okay I did that. Still, I have been lucky enough to acquire some great materials for homebrewing and better still, found some people who've shared my interest along the way. Again, I would love to "relax, have a homebrew" very soon. Did I mention the twins were born 3 months ago?

I used to ride a motorcycle. I've had my license since I was 18 and rode every year. My Dad pulled my first bike out of the dump, made it run (and pass inspection), slapped me on the back and said "don't kill yourself." It was a 1971 125 cc Honda Rebel and frankly I'm surprised I lived to tell about it. I remember cruising down the highway (litteraly down-hill) topping out at 80 mph just to push it (sorry Mom) and it was rattling so hard I thought the handlebars might come loose. I slowly upgraded from there: 1979 450cc Kawasaki rebuild; 1985 500cc Honda Magna V30; 2002 750cc Honda Shadow VT750. Last July my father-in-law lost his life on his Kawasaki. It's almost June this year and I've just registered mine and got it out of storage, it needs a chain and sprockets, I'm not sure if it will get them. I've got a lot of babies to look after.

So summer is here, I'm plugging away at my dissertation, looking for a job (hopefully a well-suited post-doc) and trying to find projects that will help maintain my sanity. I've been thinking for a while about trying a linux os at home and using it as a digital audio workstation. Why? Well it's a two-fer. I'll get to bang my head against the wall learning something that's not chemistry for a change. Linux is hard enough to get started in but I really want to compound it with the world of DAWs, sequencers, digital effects, samples, synths, VST plugins, etc. I sang bass in a college chamber choire. I played sax in the pep-band and guitar in the jazz band in high-school. I've been writing "singer-songwriter" crap for about 15 years (although a bit dried up for the past 5). I don't know much about any of that, but I don't know anything about digital composition and recording. Thus, this is the start of my blog.