as so many before me, the registration screen tells me to introduce myself, so here i go.

i am a father of 2 boys, ages 4 and 2... which is subject to change, as we all know... i'm a clerk at a court, but prefer to think of myself as a laid-off software engineer... even though i've been laid off for 3 years now.

i dropped out of school... that whole ADD thing... and the fact that in the late 90's, the tech market was so booming that you could easily get a high paying job and learn exponentially more on the job than in the classroom... well... things change, i guess.

lacking a degree, i settled for a clerk. i've been whittling away at my degree, but with 2 kids, a mortgage and all the nasty things life throws at you, it just keeps dragging on and on and on...

silly singularities ... why did chaos have to randomly select this singularity to encapsulate my conciousness...

my hobbies are playing simcity 4, doing puzzles, theorizing about abstract physics and conspiracies. most of the physics i theorize about, i'm probably wrong, and i'm sure others have laid the framework in stone, but as i'm puttering about this universe, i just analyze things as they come at me.

about that whole ADD thing... it's rather recent that i've been tested for it, and turns out that i have one of the strongest biological cases my psychiatrist has seen in a long time. i took 5 hours of tests, should have only taken about 3 hours. they consisted of a personality test, an iq test, a memory test, a creativity test and a comprehension test. The personality test, creativity test and comprehension tests were all with pencil and paper and are still being evaluated. the iq and memory tests were interactive and graded on the spot. the story rather startled me.

the iq test was with a bunch of sequences and puzzles and graphical manipulations and patterns... they give you a base with something missing and 5 choices to fill it in. you say the answer and it is marked. after the test, he calmly said "if you line everyone up in the world and say the smartest person is a 100 and the dumbest person is a 0, what number do you think you are? I said 90, because i've always been rather good at patterns and such. i thought i had done rather well. He said i wasn't even close. he drew a bell curve and said "90 is here" - somewhere about a 1/3rd up the curve. "you're right here." and he pointed to the very edge of the curve where it meets the X axis. "you're a 99. and that is because we don't give out 100's. you got every question right. that doesn't happen very often. i've been doing this for 28 years and i've only seen it once."

at that point, his voice was beginning to sound less calm, as i could tell he wanted to say something he professionally felt he shouldn't... that's another thing about me is that i've always been rather good at reading people, couldn't tell you why... but he shook it off and said "lets do the memory test"

that consisted of a couple of different type puzzles and some narrations i was supposed to recite back to him as best i could... i didn't do too hot at that. when he said to line the people up and number them like before, i said i was probably about a 30... he shook his head and said "30 is right here" (about 3/5ths up the bell curve) ... "your down here at 22"...

and so he continued on about how he can see how that has really held me back in life and how frustrating it must be... then he locked me in a room for 4 hours to take more tests... still waiting waiting waiting...

i haven't told anyone that, because i feel rather well adjusted and don't want people to think of me any differently... and i don't want to let it get to my head either... but i'd be lying if i didn't say i want to start using my brain for more complex and interesting things. i'm tired of just drifting about. Especially having kids who probably have similar genetics, i want to be a better intelectual influence on them. I also want to make sure they don't have the same genetic defect they are calling "ADD" that makes performing in school so difficult.

anyway... i'm sure this is the most wordy introduction ever... but thank you for letting me share that with you... a bunch of strangers...

i've been doing some of the puzzles on this board, and they have really fascinated me. I feel like i could contribute quite a bit to the board considering my fascinations with social and civil engineering. i think i could come up with some cool real-world type puzzles and algorithms to hopefully challange you all with. In the meantime, i am loving being so challanged by all of you. Thank you all for making my past week a fun experience for me.