I enjoy playing soccer, growing plants, listening to music, and visiting Central America, the last of which I rarely get to do.
My favorite teams are the US Men's National Team, Reading and Manchester United of the English Premier League, and Huddersfield Town of the English First Division (the 3rd tier English league). I also like Houston Dynamo (go Texas teams!) and Columbus Crew of the MLS. I always have a hard time selecting a favorite team: I used to like foreign teams that had Americans on their roster, but that formula doesn't work because you have to change loyalties when the players change teams, otherwise be stuck cheering for a team with no Americans. The picture shows John O'Brien scoring the first goal in 2002 World Cup against Portugal.
I've been working on a text version of a world cup soccer game. The game conducts qualifying for every confederation (or at least that's the goal), as well as running through world cup competition. It's not quite finished, but you can download a copy here (last updated 12/31/05), if you're interested in seeing how it works. After you've downloaded and upzipped it, you must open up the readme file and do what it says to get it to work. Please give me any feedback you might have about it so that I can make it better.
As for music, I like instrumental jazz (Antonio Carlos Jobim of Brasil, Ruben Gonzalez of Cuba, Miles Davis, Paul Desmond, MJQ), and vocal jazz (Frank Sinatra - if he qualifies as jazz - Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday), classical (Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, Vaughan Williams), country (Willie Nelson & his fellow outlaws, Don Williams, Lyle Lovett), and African American hymns & spirituals (unfortunately most of my recordings of this type are done by white professional singers as opposed to being "authentic").
As for Central America, I have been to Mexico many times, usually on volunteer trips, but just for fun as well. I love the Mayan culture and have visited Mayan ruins on the Yucatan peninsula (Chichen Itza, Uxmal, and Tulum), and in Guatemala (Tikal). The image shows me climbing the main pyramid at Chichen Itza.
As for the plants, I have links below to the pictures and brief descriptions of some of my more photogenic species.
One of the things I enjoy about plants is starting them from seed; about 1/2 of my plants were started from seed.
Some things are pretty hard or costly to start from seed, or it's just too
impractical (succulents are extremely easy to start from a clipping); I've never seen a succulent seed, to my knowledge.
Carnivorous Plants Citrus Trees Tropical African Species Peppers Succulents
Butterwort
Venus Flytrap
Best Carnivorous Plant Info Page that I've found
Mexican Lime Tree
Valencia Orange Tree
Best Citrus Info Page that I've found
Gardenia
Best Gardenia Info Page that I've found
Orchid (Dendrobium)
Best Orchid Info Page that I've found
Arabica Coffee Tree
Best Coffee Tree Info Page that I've found
Macadamia Nut Tree
African Violet
Desert Rose
Bell Pepper
Serrano Pepper
Haworthia
Christmas Cactus
Sunshine Cactus
