Please allow me to introduce myself...

Hi, I’m Kevin.

I used to be a lurker in the Diabetes OC, but now I’m a blogger -- just like you! (unless you’re a lurker in the Diabetes OC (like I used to be), or a random friend or family member I've gotten up the nerve to share this little web page of mine with).

I’ve been reading many of the blogs in the Diabetes OC for many months now and have seen a lot of these Memes, Interviews, and Top 5 Lists out there and I feel like I’ve had a chance to get to know you a lot better than you’ve gotten to know me through my occasional comments. So, I’ll just try to give a brief overview of who I am to kick things off:

I’m a type 1 diabetic. I was diagnosed when I was 5-years old (I think it was in May of 1979 (I was too young to remember such details, and my parents didn’t keep the best records)) and so that makes it 27 years now and therefore makes me just shy of 33 years old. Q.E.D. (I’m a geek).

I’m a programmer/analyst for a government agency (I can’t tell you which, or I’d have to

Not Really

But our media relations folks are pretty strict about us remaining anonymous government employees.
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kill you). I work on building public policy simulation models and have degrees in demography and economics. So I spend my days writing Fortran and SAS programs (and I must reassert: I’m a dork).

I don’t follow sports in any way, shape, or form really, and I find that this causes conversational difficulties for me at times – particularly when I’m meeting a new group of men at a party, for instance.

I play guitar, though not very well, but it’s certainly something that I can (and do) spend hours on end doing. And if you couldn’t tell from the subject line, music really floats my boat / blows my hair back / rocks my socks / etc. / etc. / etc.

While I’m not a huge Rolling Stones fan per se, I do think "Exile on Main Street" is a truly exceptional album and have been told repeatedly by some friends that I would really love "Beggars Banquet" and "Let it Bleed." I would say my top three bands are the Beatles, Phish, and Wilco. I have been to about 30 Phish shows from say 1992 through 2002, and while I’m kinda sad that they’re no longer together, I have to admit that they were declining.

But I’ve recently become totally hooked on quite a few

Worth Checking Out

The New Pornographers
Death Cab For Cutie
Postal Service
Architecture in Helsinki
The Arcade Fire
Sufjan Stevens
Wolf Parade
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Stars
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indie pop bands – There's so much great music out there these days (and surprisingly a lot of it comes from Canada), that it's a little overwhelming.

I wish to learn Spanish.

I've traveled to England, Japan, Guatemala, and Costa Rica, but haven's seen a whole helluva lot of the US.

I have a lovely wife named Megan who is extremely generous and thoughtful and I am not sure what or where I’d be without her (think Beach Boys – at least, that’s what pops into my head). And on the animal front, we have a little Beagle/Basset hound named Jorge that we adore.

We live in a little hippy suburb outside of Washington DC, though we used to live in the greatest neighborhood on the planet: Dupont Circle (don’t you just love biased hyperbole?). The transition to a suburban lifestyle where you have to drive to everything was (and still is) a bit difficult for us to get used to. We didn’t have a car for the past ten years and now we have two(!). Life is truely nicer when you can walk to work, the grocery store, or restaurants with relative ease.

(In case you haven't been able to tell from the blog title and my writing so far, I like parentheses and tangents and

If you like footnotes, too

You should definately check out two of my favorite authors/books:
David Foster Wallace - "Infinite Jest" and
Nicholson Baker - "The Mezzanine"
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footnotes and

And as Edward Tufte said:

"Notes belong in the margin, where God intended them to be."
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sidebars (I sometimes like to nest them, too (and although these diversions might be difficult to read or follow at times, I find it’s the best way to express my thoughts (sometimes)))).

I’m kinda out-doorsy. My dad taught me to fly-fish well before "A River Runs Through It" and Brad Pitt made it popular, though I'm lucky if I actually get myself out on a stream more then a handful of times per year. I used to rock climb and mountain bike in high school and college, but now I’ve got a desk job and only get out

aka: Car camping

Tents are literally feet from our cars, meals usually include a large salmon, and there's french press coffee for breakfast (though I'm not a coffee drinker myself).
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Gucci camping with friends a couple times a year as well.

That’s a lot to read, but it paints me fairly accurately in broad strokes: (diabetic; likes music; plays guitar; likes tangential, stream of conscious writing, married and has a dog; tries to learn Spanish; and was totally excited when he stumbled upon the Diabetes OC (and sometimes randomly writes in the third person)).

So… I look forward to continuing to read your blogs and also to sharing my thoughts on life in general and life with diabetes specifically, getting your feedback, writing back to your feedback, and having… like, you know… a conversation…yeah, yeah… and getting to know you better… and you getting to know me better… and, yeah, yeah… that’s the ticket!