Check out my Web Albums .
I enjoy working (more on that later), reading, shopping, cooking, eating, and spending time with family and friends. I am almost always singing along in my car to whatever is playing whenever I'm not on the phone or listening to talk radio. I don't really care anymore if anyone sees me singing in my car. Oh, yeah -- I also love my TiVo.
I have the flattest feet known to man, so really hot cement on a pool deck affects me about 20% faster than it does those of you with arches because of the added surface area coming in contact with the ground, so I tend to be the one to jump in the pool first when in those situations. I was given these really nice custom-fitted arch supports for my shoes that make some of them squeak as I walk. When I was younger, that might have bothered or embarassed me, but now I just think it's funny.
I recently took a 90-minute cab ride in Thursday rush hour traffic from Newark Airport to JFK Airport because I was too cheap to just fly out of Newark at the time that my tickets were purchased. About 20 minutes into the cab ride, the cab driver, who was originally from Uruguay, shared with me that he was also psychic, and when asked to give me some insight into my future love life, he hesitated before informing me that he saw me with a man. Looks like JDate was a big waste of time and money after all.
I love books and have about 100 times as many books and magazines as I have time to read, but they make the covers look so good these days, so I get them. One day, I'd like to have a house where when you open the door to one of the rooms, there's a Barnes & Noble right there in a huge room, complete with a Starbucks and extras that I'd pay to hang out and read and do homework and whisper and gossip in order to create and maintain that BN ambiance. But my Barnes & Noble room wouldn't close at 11pm like all the others in the real world where corporate America doesn't understand that book-lovers also like to stay up later than when society dictates that we go to sleep.
I have a pretty dry, sarcastic, but good-natured sense of humor, and I love making people laugh and lightening the mood. I've always been an eternal optimist, and I believe that people have a lot more control over their place in life than they'd like to think.
I have a 6'4" fiberglass limited edition Superman statue that used to be in the corner of my office (but now it's in storage while I'm doing the home office thing) like the ones you see at Sharper Image stores. I've been a big fan of Superman pretty much all my life, because I relate to his secret double life. The first comic book that I ever bought was the one where Superman died back in 1993. That sparked an obsessive compulsive habit of mine that resulted in me accumulating a very large comic book collection over the years, with some titles going back to the 1960s. I still buy most new issues of most classic titles from both DC and Marvel Comics, even though I don't have time to read most of them (see my similar situation with books up above). I tell myself that I'm doing it for the chi'dren. I picture myself as the cool dad who has the cool comic book collection going back decades.
I get a warm, happy feeling inside whenever Zak Lovenson calls me "buddy". I used to get a wrenching pain in my gut everytime I drove by the Wilshire Blvd exit of the 405 Freeway because I didn't get into UCLA when I was 18. I have a custom-tailored Superman costume that I have worn for Halloween 2005 and 2006. I have since gotten over it. I desire to one day obtain a Masters Degree in Real Estate Development (MRED) at USC, but it'll have to wait for now.
I work out at least once or twice a week, but I wish it was more. My best friends are all into sports -- me not as much. I enjoy watching a game with them occasionally, but I hardly ever keep up with the stuff on my own. I trained for a half-marathon in 2004 with the AIDS Project L.A. people, but due to a friend's wedding, I ended up running the "BIGGEST, most-publicized, two-man, L.A. half-marathon event ever!" with Aaron Freedman when we ran 13.1 miles from Calabasas to Sherman Oaks along Ventura Blvd., and had between 20 and 45 friends and family members cheering for us on every mile along the way.
I am the oldest of four boys. I think that being the oldest really helped define my character and instilled me with confidence, responsibility, ambition, dedication, compassion, and leadership. I feel lucky to have been brought up the way I was.
I've been working since I was 14, starting with my father's and grandfather's businesses, and culminating in the four companies I own now, each with different business partners. My dream is to be a successful, community-oriented, real estate developer who creates neighborhoods and communities that can be sustained for generations.
I love the people that I work with and I have so much respect for each of my business partners and employees. I really appreciate all the people who have invested in me and/or my projects. I'm really lucky to have so many talented and trusting people in my life.
The dog I'd like to have one day is a puggle, because it looks a lot like me -- lean, athletic build; furrowed brow, day-old stubble. I want to name him Buster.
