Why would you want to know anything about me? I am just a normal, semi insane, kinda weird boy who spends entirely too much time being pulled in ten million different directions by all of the different things that I would love to be able to study. The result? Focusing on just one thing is a challenge. My Doctoral advisor never tired of preaching the sermon to me of how I was broad and not deep, but a Ph.D. means that you are at least deep and not so broad in at least one area! Ugh. I mean, my two undergrad degrees: Geology and Computer Science? The outdoors and the smelly indoors! How different can you possibly get?

Truth be told, if I got my way of things, I would spend most of my time traveling the world. I have been in 22 countries, and all that has done is give me a good guess at just how little I know and whet my appetite!!

That said, vital stuff:

I was born on mother's day (May 9) 1976. I am told that my parents were on their way to an expensive and elaborate mother's day dinner, when I started kicking and yelling from inside my mother's stomach. I guess I was hungry too. So yes, I was born at dinner time. Until recently, most of those who knew me would swear that there was some deep and abiding cosmic significance to that fact.

Last time I checked, there wasn't. The (outdated) draft plan of my life is below...

So there is all you wanted to know about the Shawn timeline. It was with great pain and anxiety that I pulled up the page for my high school. *shudder*

I have done a royal ton of geeky science things. I will put those along with my degrees, etc, on the geek page. I was just thinking, I started that page when I didn't even have any degrees, back in like 1995. Wow. Getting old. I successfully spent 13.5 years in college, and am presently "All But Dissertation" on my Ph.D. What that really means is that I should be getting a real job (check), and figuring out what to do with the rest of my life (um, a tiny, wannabe check, but really dot on that one...).

Here is how I came by my present goals and aspirations:

After I got home from my mission working with Korean people in New York for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I had a really hard time getting back into the pace of computer programming and memorizing the formulae of different minerals. They seemed really trivial to me after I had just spent two years helping and serving people. I knew I wanted to do some sort of work to help, but I was a scientist and wasn't sure what would be able to utilize my training. Before my mission, I had flirted with medical imaging physics, but it was just too detached from actually helping people. I had become addicted to seeing their faces and giving out hugs.

What I realized then was that I wanted to be a Hydrogeologist and work with water resource issues in third world countries. On the ground, with the people, not in some UN office in Geneva or something! The way I look at it, it is almost impossible for people to have dignity if they don't even have clean water to drink. I see so much suffering in the world that I can't really look at myself in the mirror if I don't do something to help. At first, I was thinking that I would want to work for UNICEF or some such international organization, but now I have realized that I can do the kind of work I want while working for the US Government. Both U.S. Aid, and the Foreign Agricultural Service would potentially be good fits.

Since I am presently working for Uncle Smokey in the U.S. Forest Service, my career path can reasonably eventually go in those directions, with a good helping of luck. The Foreign Agricultural Service is even in the same department of the government as the Forest Service. That is my neat little plan, anyway. The longer I live, though, the more I realize that things seldom go the way I expect them to - but that's part of the adventure, right?

My Ph.D. will be in Hydrology and Water Resources , and the last chapter of it is going to be a project that I am doing as part of my Forest Service duties (how is that for an amazing arrangement?!); but the crazy thing is that all of the other chapters are all about MARS!! When I tell people on the Forest here about that, they practically keel over in shock!. So what the heck was I thinking?

Well, since you can't really do a dissertation in "humanitarian work", I decided to do my research in something really fun. So I picked water on Mars, and it has been very, very fun (but there was absolutely no grant money available for the work). Maybe I am nuts, but I have to maintain my reputation as a mad / evil scientist!

On to other things...

I mentioned above have been privileged to do a fair amount of traveling the world over the last decade. I am grateful beyond words for those opportunities, and for how much I have grown as a result. I am not saying that I am a super-duper person, but I would be much less of a person if I hadn't had my little world blown open. Not all of the traveling has been fun (see my Human Rights page for more on that...), and there have been plenty of tears shed as I realized that I could do almost nothing to help all of these people who I was meeting who were suffering in any of a million ways. If anything, it was the most painful times that have solidified my desire to do humanitarian work.

Of all my travels, the "favorites" are:

• Country: Cambodia! The temples are stunning, and the people are the most humble and kindest of any others I have met. The poverty there is greater than anything else I have ever seen, but in spite of it there is so much of laughter and joy.

• Man-Made thing: The Angkor Wat Temple Complex in Cambodia. It is beautiful, grand, solemn, and a thousand other adjectives that fall incredibly short of describing the transcendent experience of exploring it. The Pyramids of Egypt? Manchu picchu? Bulgooksa in Korea? Yeah, they were all great to see, but it is absolutely no comparison. Petra, in Jordan, came closer, but was still not in the same league.

• Natural wonder: Mount McKinley in Denali National Park, Alaska. It is literally the biggest thing you can see on the planet. I was at a campsite where the elevation was approximately 8,000 feet. The summit of the mountain is close to 21,000 feet, and it was only about 40 horizontal miles away from me! That is the largest vertical relief found anywhere on the globe. There are no words for how big it is. As I climbed up a rise and first saw it, my jaw literally dropped and I found myself speechless. I will never forget that moment, as long as I live.

Overall, things are going well. Smokey has been a relatively kind boss, and it is a really amazing feeling to have a real job after more than 13 years of college and 2 years of missionary work. I get to work outside part of the time in this beautiful area where the Sierra Nevada Mountains transition into the Cascade Volcanoes. Professionally, there is actually a fairly clear path from where I am now to where I want to be in 10 years. And best of all? Things are really great with my family, and I am finally back in California so I can see them more often!

That is about it....