User Profile

In the beginning, I created the heavens and the earth. Then I made the mistake of creating some monkeys in my image and it subsequently went straight to hell.

Well, OK, maybe not.

My name is Andy; I'm 46, a middle-aged father of three, grandfather of 1, with a rapidly aging dog, too many cats and a huge house in a little ex-mining town. How have the mighty fallen!

I'm a science fiction fan, active in Chicago-area Science Fiction fandom for many years. Between 1997 and 2000, I was a member of the Capricon concom (convention committee), as department head for the Dealer's Room; I subsequently sat on the Board of Directors of its parent organization, Phandemonium for two years. After that I worked with DucKon for several years, doing everything from guest liaison services to helping out with procurement, publications and programming ops.

I read a lot. No, I mean, A LOT. At any one point in time, I will typically have two or three books that I'm actively reading, stashed in different rooms around the house. (Actually, all of us read A LOT. We outgrew our bookcases almost before we bought them.) My personal favorite types of literature are Science Fiction and Fantasy, although I'm a pretty devout Mystery junkie as well. And no, I don't have a single favorite author... I also find myself with more and more comic strip collections; I have most of the Zits, Pogo, For Better or For Worse, Baby Blues, Fox Trot, Dilbert, Bloom County, and Calvin & Hobbes books.

I like to cook. You name it, I'll probably be willing to try to make it. I confess to being something of a food snob, although that tends to be more from a perspective of cooking meals from scratch as opposed to reheating the contents of cans or TV dinners; I'm definitely not in the Gourmet Magazine class of Food Snob (although I do like to read it). I'm an avid viewer of the TV Food Network; Emeril and Cooking Live with Sara Moulton are my favorite shows. I also get a pretty reliable kick out of Iron Chef as well.

Although I'm not really a Food Snob, I admit to being a Beer Snob. I will only drink American mass-produced swill when it's free, and then only if it's MGD which, while certainly not particularly good, is at least not very offensive. Give me a microbrew any day -- my favorites being Baderbrau and Rogue brewery, although I have a weakness for some of the Berghoff specialty brews and a sentimental fondness for Leinenkugels.

I have lesser, but far more supercilious vices in the area of whisky: Irish and single malt Scotch, thank you -- and get the hell away from me with that ice!

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