Since I've de-lurked today...
My name is Reggie Bautista. Like a few others here, I'm a regular on the other Brin list. I live in Kansas City where I work as a Technology Analyst for Hallmark Cards, which is a fancy way of saying that I do tech support over the phone for the pc-based networked cash registers at Hallmark stores in the US and Canada. I studied music composition with an electronic music emphasis at the University of Missouri at Kansas City (UMKC), where I met my wife. I'll be 34 in about a month.
The first Brin novel that I read was _Startide Rising_ which I originally picked up because I was going through a phase where I was obsessed with dolphins and whales. _Startide_ and _Earth_ (which I'm currently re-reading) are my two favorite Brin novels. I recently finished _Darwin's Radio_, and am a big fan of Greg Bear (_Blood Music_ is my favorite from him, and if you haven't read it, what are you waiting for? ;-). I haven't read a lot of Benford, but what I've read has been pretty good.
Other sci fi authors that I like a lot include Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein (who grew up in Kansas City), Larry Niven (anything written before about 1983 or so), Kathleen Ann Goonan (_Queen City Jazz_ is a masterpiece), Orson Scott Card, Greg Keyes and (and I know I'm going to catch some flack over this one) Anne McCaffrey (Julia over on the other list described McCaffrey and especially the Dragonriders novels as a "gateway drug").
Other than sci fi and science and technology in general, I'm interested in just about any kind of music you can name, philosophy, movies (not just sci fi), art (John LeFarge is a particular favorite, although not necessarily representative of the kind of stuff I normally like), role-playing games, computer games, rollercoasters, anime (_Vampire Hunter D_ good, _Dragon Ball Z_ bad) , and almost anything written by Joss Whedon (_Buffy_, _Angel_, etc.) or Joe Straczynski (_B5_, _Jeremiah_, _Midnight Nation_, etc).
My wife and I have a cat named Peasblossom (named after one of the fairies in _Midsummer Night's Dream_), two guinnea pigs (Duncan and Liam), one regular hamster (Gingerbread Cinnamon Muad-Dib, Ginger for short), two black dwarf hamsters (Puck and Gimli), and will soon have a hedgehog. We also have a friend who rents a room, and that friend has a dog named Agony (Aggie or Gonie for short).
That's probably far more than any of you really wanted to know about me, so I'll just leave it at that.
Reggie Bautista More Details Available Upon Request Maru
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