I was born on a snowy day back in 1975 in Surrey. Not the one in England, the one in Canada. After some five years of doing nothing, I made the decision to go to kindergarten. After another thirteen years of doing nothing, I graduated with Honours from Lord Tweedsmuir Senior Secondary in Surrey in 1993. Second highest GPA (3.93, I believe) in my class. Would have been first except for the guy who took easy courses and pulled off a 4.0. Don't worry, I'm not bitter. I was named top student in Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry, along with top science student for the graduating class, which helped ease the sting. I was accepted into the three universities in British Columbia (SFU, UBC, and UVic -- UNBC wasn't around back then), and decided to go to the University of Victoria, where I'm currently studying Physics & Astronomy. Yes, if you've been doing the math, I've been at UVic for 5 years now. There's a reason for that, it's called the Co-op Program.

Right now I'm working at the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in Victoria, British Columbia. It's actually rather laid back, being federal government and all. I'm looking at stellar populations in M31 and M33 using Hubble Space Telescope data.

With the Co-op Program I've worked for the Canadian Explosives Research Laboratory in Ottawa, Ontario, with Cominco Engineering Services Limited in Vancouver, British Columbia, and the Joint Astronmy Centre in Hilo, Hawaii.

After I graduate from the University of Victoria (in December 1998, with a BSc in Honours Physics and Astronomy) I have honestly no idea what I'm going to do. Grad school in astronomy, another bachelor's degree (maybe Political Science, Anthropology, or something entirely different), or maybe law. Who knows.

In my travels as a student I have written a number of scientific documents, both for classes and for co-op work terms. I'll be putting some of them up here as I find the time.

• A User's Guide to Reducing CGS4 Data with IRAF - written at the Joint Astronomy Centre, August 1997.
• The Enigmatic Polarization Spectrum of W33A - written at the Joint Astronomy Centre, December 1997. Be warned, this document follows HTML3.2 spec, so if you cannot see mathematics, greek symbols, and other wild things, this document might not turn out very well. I will try to get a PostScript version up soon.

What sort of music do I find appealing? Well, the spectrum is broad. My favourite type is probably what passes for alternative rock these days. I'm also a huge fan of most Canadian artists, like The Tragically Hip, Blue Rodeo, Great Big Sea, and 54-40. I also have a large collection of U2 albums and singles (32 at last count). Classic rock also makes up a large percentage of my CDs. I do not have as many jazz CDs as I would like (just 3 - Dave Brubeck's "Time Out", a "Best Of" CD of Miles Davis, and Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie Live at Carnegie Hall), but I'm going to try to buy more, money permitting. I also enjoy classical music, but again, I do not have many of this type. I'm not a terrible fan of rap, dance, or country music.

In addition to music, I also like to spend my leisure time reading books. I've got a small sci-fi collection (small compared to Frossie's!), most of which I've read a couple of times each. My favourite author is probably Clifford D. Simak, who is a Grand Master of Science Fiction, and has won numerous science-fiction author awards. He wrote "City", "Time And Again", and "Way Station", along with many other fine books. I like Simak's works because they don't deal with space-pirates flying through space shooting things, or aliens from Zubenelgenubi trying to take over the Earth. Most (if not all) of his books take place on Earth, set in the future, and deal with human experiences as time goes on. Sure, some of them have aliens in them, but these aliens usually have some sort of symbiotic relationship with a human, and don't necessarily control people. It's more how humans interact with aliens than anything, and how humans (and life on Earth) will evolve in the future. More philosophical than most other sci-fi out there. Unfortunately, Simak died in 1988, and his books are getting increasingly difficult to find. If you can find any, I highly recommend them.

I'm not just a sci-fi freak, though. I'm currently reading two books: "Inferno" by Dante Alighieri as translated by Allen Mandelbaum and "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller.

And then there're sports. My enjoyment in sports is wide-ranging, and, like music, starts at an early age. I started playing soccer when I was about 7, and continued until I was 13. We were never any good, though. I prefer team sports to solo sports, but I'll do either in a heartbeat. I enjoy playing ball hockey, basketball, soccer, and tennis. I'm also into skiing, cycling, and to a lesser extent, running, something I keep meaning to get into again. Yes, I used to run, primarily during high school. My best time for a 10-k run was just under 50 minutes, which is a target for me when I start running again. I just ran the Garden City 10K on April 26. Finished 912 out of a field of about 6000 with a time of 49:20. Not bad!

I'm also a rather good cook, or so I've been told. One of my favourite dishes to make is a red pepper/shrimp sauce that's just wonderful over spinach tortellini. It's superb, if I may say so myself. Oh, and I like to drink Canada Dry ginger-ale. But how can you drink Canada Dry? Canada's a pretty big place, you know. Shaddup.