Holiday Blog Tag!

Blog tag is a lot like the various games played on various social networks -- the rules are simple and the idea is you get to know a bit more about the folks behind the blogs. Depending on how seriously you take it, it can be enlightening or useless. Harold Feld tagged me over at Tales of the Sausage Factory (if you're not reading TOTSF, you're missing out on one of the most insightful portals into what's really going on when regulators create national telecommunications policy. I was tagged along with friends Tim Karr, Esme Vos, David Isenberg, and Art Brodsky (many of whose blogs I read regularly).

The pedigree is, as far as I can tell, something like this:
Dave Gale tagged Avinash Kaushik, who tagged Jonathan Mendez, who tagged Marshall Sponder, who tagged Lee Odden, who tagged Eric Ward, who tagged Glenn Fleishman, who tagged David Weinberger, who tagged , who tagged Harold Feld, who tagged me!

Contrary to the running commentary in lots of the blog posts,
Jeff Pulver did not start this (he just imported the idea from somewhere else), nor does he appear to be directly involved in this particular pedigree -- but check out the blog-tag tree here.

So with that said, here's 5 things about me:

1. I'm getting married on June 30, 2007 to Faith Swords (and no, she's not a comic book character or super-hero). We've been together for going on 4 years and known each other for about twice that. We've got more info up here which is the first official link to the page from my blog.

2. I've actually been put on "double-secret probation." Due to my community activism and local political organizing, my old department put me on a non-academic, non-behavioral probation that didn't exist on any books or in any rules or regulations. For anyone who believes that academic black lists went out of style with the McCarthy era, I encourage you to take a closer look at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (and while you're at it, take a closer look at the University's mascot -- yes, UIUC actually has a white man dress up as a Native American and dance around to "honor the Indians").

3. My background is in psychology, not computer science, engineering, etc. Though I'd focused on quantitative statistics, my master's thesis was a qualitative assessment. Officially, I'm on sabbatical from the psychology PhD program, having completed all classes and passed the qualifying exams; however, "little known fact numero 2" helped convince me to put more time into media activism, wireless, and other pursuits

4. I graduated from Wilbur Cross High School in New Haven, CT. It was a fairly rough place and we had shootings in the school every year I was there. My senior year several classmates and I conducted a survey of the student population asking them about their drug use, sexual habits, whether they brought weapons to school, etc. The principal confiscated our research findings. Even though 25% of the students being tested for HIV were coming up positive, the school refused to distribute condoms (claiming that condoms would cause sexual activity). meanwhile, a group of students formed the Wilbur Cross Student Union, got onto National Public Radio, and ended up getting both the school's principal and the superintendent removed from their positions. I guess that sort of sealed the deal for me when it comes to the efficacy of community organizing and social action.

5. I spent 2 years of my life backpacking through Eastern and Western Europe, North Africa, Turkey, etc. While living on an average of $15/day was, at times, tough (it sure doesn't buy much in the way of transportation, food, housing, etc., much less supporting all of them), it did teach me a lot about simple living. Around Christmas time, my friends often tell me I'm hard to shop for.

So who am I going to tag???

How about:

Angela Stuber, Dana Spiegel, Hannah Sassaman, Josh Breitbart, and Ross Musselman.