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Stuart

I am here for Friends and Networking

About Me

Time to finally update this thing...

Well, I'm back to being more involved in the San Francisco Renegades Drum and Bugle Corps. I was suffering from burnout, so I decided to stay off the field in 2006 and became one of the corps photographers instead. (Buy the 2006 corps photo DVD !) The time off gave me a chance to recharge the batteries a bit and I'm now once again on the instructional staff for the corps, back to my old position as cymbal instructor.

When not spending time with the corps, I play with my other musical toys. My current instrument collection consists of six guitars (a Fender F-230 acoustic, a Takamine EF-385 12-string acoustic, a Yamaha SE-350 electric, a Fender Standard Stratocaster , a Fender American Deluxe Ash Stratocaster , and a 10 top Paul Reed Smith Custom 22 ), a Yamaha DX-21 synthesizer, a violin, two Pearl FFX marching snare drums , and a pair of Zildjian 18" Stadium Series Medium marching cymbals. I recently added a Lyon LU5 ukulele to the collection, so hopefully I'll learn how to play that soon.

In my "professional life" I am a UNIX Systems Administrator, currently working at the Department of Genetics in the Stanford University School of Medicine . I also have some MySQL database adminstration duties and am the backup Oracle DBA for my group. I've also acquired a bit of Perl coding responsibilities as well. We're a mostly Sun server shop, with some Apple XServe G5s thrown in for fun. We've recently added some Red Hat Enterprise Linux to the mix as well.

I can't leave out the sports nut side of me... Basketball has been one of my passions ever since I started watching my beloved Los Angeles Lakers back in the early 80s. The Stanford women's basketball team will always hold a special place in my heart as well. I'll watch almost any sport on TV -- basketball, baseball, football, hockey, volleyball, NASCAR, bowling...

I guess the topic of baking cheesecakes will have to wait until the next update...

My Interests

music, sports, computers, drum corps, food, Las Vegas

Music:

Classic Rock: Eric Clapton /Cream/Blind Faith/Derek and the Dominos, Eagles , Styx , Journey , Doobie Brothers , Pink Floyd , Allman Brothers Band , Van Halen , Stevie Ray Vaughan

Progressive Rock: Rush , Dream Theater , Transatlantic , Porcupine Tree , Marillion , ELP , Yes , Tim Morse , Maximum Indifference

Jazz: Keiko Matsui , Chuck Mangione , Stanley Jordan , Hiroshima

Flamenco Guitars: Strunz & Farah , Gipsy Kings , Lara & Reyes

Country/Bluegrass: Mary Chapin Carpenter , Trisha Yearwood , Alison Krauss and Union Station

A Cappella: Hookslide , M-Pact , The House Jacks

Vocalists: Charlotte Church , Hayley Westenra

Assorted Pop Music: Sarah McLachlan , Dave Matthews Band , Vanessa Carlton , Amy Grant , Vienna Teng

80s music

Movies:

The Princess Bride, This is Spinal Tap, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Finding Nemo, Shall We Dance?, The Shawshank Redemption, Casablanca, When Harry Met Sally

Television:

Iron Chef, Law & Order, Crossing Jordan, various NHK dramas (Futarikko, Ten Urara, Suzuran)

Books:

Harry Potter series, most stuff by Amy Tan, the Heralds of Valdemar series by Mercedes Lackey, various biographies, Ghost Rider and Traveling Music by Neil Peart, just about anything from O'Reilly & Associates

Heroes:

Roy and PJ Hirabayashi, JW Koester, Jennifer Azzi , Jason Lowe