Well to start with, and with an eye towards "full disclosure", let me say that Jaellon is my younger brother. I got the looks and he got the smarts. Or the drive. Or something. Actually our sisters got the looks so I don't know what I was left with. Probably the temper.

Anyway I grew up in a very small Idaho town and graduated second in my class. People always seem impressed with this information until I inform them that I did not make the top 10% of the class as there were only 9 of us.

Spent a year in college then two years in Japan. When I came back I spent several years in Los Angeles as a tour guide for Japanese. That was a lot of fun with bouts of boredom. I ended up in Cabo San Lucas and most of the National Parks/Monuments in the west on tours as well as the usual Disneyland, Universal Studios, etc.

Decided that there was no future as a tour guide so I went back to school and graduated in Mass Communications/Television from Idaho State University.

Graduated just in time for the whole economy to go belly up after 9/11. I am now working as a Customer Service Rep for a major internet company.

I am still single and living Utah.

I enjoy a lot of different things from music, movies, and video games to books biking and cooking. Unfortunately I am renting a basement room from a friend of mine and so I share the kitchen with his family so I don't do much cooking.

I surf Wikipedia for fun and enjoy games such as Trivial Pursuit as I am much better at trivia than at useful knowledge.

My Favorites:

Author - Terry Pratchett (If you haven't read any of his Discworld novels I highly recommend them.)

Food - Homemade Mac and Cheese, not the store bought mac and imitation cheese powder that will probably cause cancer, blindness, osteoporosis, and argyria.)

Color - Green. But not in combination with food.

Movie - The Man Who Knew Too Little - Bill Murray.

Musical Group - Diamond Rio

Genre - Comedy

Newspaper comic strips - "Frazz" "Franklin Fibbs" and "Foxtrot" (No "F" fetish though)

Online comic strips - "Sluggy Freelance" and "PVP"

Okay so now that I have done the obligatory favorites list . . .

I like pretty much all types of music. Not to fond of Rap but some songs I can take. Ditto with the ultra heavy acid metal. I used to play the trumpet. I was first chair my senior year in high school. Of course second chair was an eight grader. He was also the only other trumpet. Basically I wasn't that great at playing music but I am reaaally good at listening to it.

I enjoyed being in a small school because it gave me a broad range of choices from a small range of options. I know that is an oxymoron but let me explain. While we didn't have nearly as many extracurricular activities as a large school would, since there were less of us competing we got to do more of what we did have. For example I was on the basketball team, ran track, was on the student council, was homecoming king, was in the band, chorus, etc. All this and I was one of the less popular kids. Sports try outs were fairly simple. "Does he have a pulse" "yes" "he's on the team"

I am a dog person.

I belong to peta (People for the eating of tasty animals) (Octopus are not tasty animals BTW)

I am a paid member of the Defenders of the Nifty. (Don't ask. Or do. I don't care)

I don't seem to feel as strongly about a lot of the issues here on AD as a lot of you do, but I do enjoy putting my opinion out there to get ignored/abused/laughed at/agreed with.

I enjoy debates where people don't assume that their way is the only way and aren't afraid to "agree to disagree".

Politically I have always leaned towards the Republicans, mainly because Democrat was basically a dirty word in Idaho. Even the Democrats that we do have are basically kind of liberal Republicans. Having been out in the world a while I really have grown to dislike either/any party and tend to be more libertarian/independent now. I dislike the whole "party politics" idea and think that when so many votes are split along party lines that something is wrong. You can't tell me that there wasn't 1 Republican/Democrat who thought it better to vote the other way. It seems to me that the parties have too much power when that happens.

Any Questions????

I lived in Wendel, Idaho for a short while. It would be an example of the small schools as you describe. I did like the relationship of students to each other in a small school but did not like the lack of opportunity for activities such as band. Perhaps schools should be kept small in large school districts but still pull together multiple schools which require a larger base of students?

I'm not sure. Sometimes I wish that there had been more choices of what to do but then again more choice would have meant less opportunity for me personally. As I mentioned I am kind of a jack of all trades. I have a wide range of interests and so while there would have been more choices in a larger high school I don't know if I would have had the opportunity to do all that I did either. It's kind of a fine line I think.