User Profile

I hate trying to figure out what to say on these profile type pages, but when I'm done, I usually find I've put in a whole lot of stuff. This one is no exception :-P LiveJournal seems to be one of my favorite places right now, but I do actually have some other sites, so of course I must promote them here.

• An Eclectic World - my personal site


• Flickr - my photography collection


• Animania - a blog on my personal site where I review and discuss manga and anime (also available on LJ! animaniafeed)


• GameSpot - a list of the games I own and a mini-blog about my video gaming adventures


• Wikipedia - my profile, which includes links to the various articles I work on and my Wikipedia brags :-)

Guess I should talk about myself a moment. I should probably warn anyone who is thinking of friending me, I usually post to my LiveJournal blog daily, sometimes as many as 4-5 times a day. :-P This journal used to be part of my personal site using a homegrown system, but I switched to using LJ and imported all of the entries from the old system (hence my having entries spanning back to 1995).

About my LJ

Before reading my entries, you may want to check out my disclaimer. For the most part, this LJ is open.  I don't believe in hiding all my stuff behind a friends only cut.  Very very personal stuff (like identifying info type stuff) or stuff that may be personal about someone else in real life will go behind a friends cut, but that is fairly rare.  I talk about a lot of stuff in my blog...mostly stuff about me. Why?  Well duh...it is MY blog   So I'll often talk about school, work, video games I'm playing, my babies, manga, stuff I bought, my finances, my house renovations, my family, books I'm reading, etc etc.  Sometimes I'll post meme's (what can I say, I do enjoy good ones), and sometimes I'll talk about current events and local or national news.  I even talk about religion sometimes.

I am a fairly open and easy going person.  If you friend me, I'll probably friend you back if your own blog is interesting, in English, and isn't full of profanity.  I love comments, but I do screen the anonymous ones.  For the most part, I'll leave any comments up as long as they are said politely, even if they are in disagreement with my own beliefs.  So, with that said, the rest is all about...what else, me!

The Usual Basics

I'm female and 32 years old. I am permanently single with no human children, however I've been blessed to share my life with several furry kids. Currently I share my home with Blue (4 year old deaf border collie/Australian shepherd mix), Hershey (12 year old chihuahua/rat terrier mix), Yuki (8 month old Border Collie mix), and Fusion (9 year old domestic medium hair kitty). They are my precious kids and a diverse group that keeps life from getting too boring (or mom from ever completely relaxing LOL). 

In July 2008, I achieved one of my life long goals of buying my first house, so many of my posts will include me talking about the renovations I have done and will do, etc. After purchasing it, I immediately plunked another $10-12k into it to get new furniture, do some electrical and plumbing work, and renovate the kitchen. Floors ripped up, counters ripped out, etc. It is still a work in progress, though.

Career and Education

I'm a web developer by career, doing my programming primarily in ColdFusion and PHP and using the PostgreSQL database system (though I am also well versed in mySQL, Access, and MS SQL). I have worked for the same organization for over seven years now. I run three servers and manage over 30 sites. I graduated salutatorian from Durham High School in 1995.  I attempted to go to NC State, but due to family issues, dropped out after the first semester.  A few years later, I tried again at UNC-Chapel Hill, but also dropped out after a semester, unable to balance a full time job and a full course load.  After I moved to Texas, I enrolled in Blinn College.  Though I was working full time, I graduated May 2004 with an Associates of Applied Science in Computer Science degree and a 3.5 GPA. 

Hobbies and Fun Stuff

I LOVE manga, especially shonen-ai/yaoi, and shojo. I have over 500 volumes of manga so far, and I usually buy 5-10 volumes a month. I've also started buying Japanese light novels related to anime and manga I've seen or read.  I really love books in general, with nearly 1000 titles filling my house's library. Right now, alas, the library is empty of shelves so my books are stuck in boxes and stacks, but I plan to add in wall to wall built in cases relatively soon to have a dedicated area for my babies.

I also own a ton of DVDs spanning range of genres, with anime being my favorite genre of course. With the move to the house, my DVDs found a new home in three beautiful glass fronted DVD storage cases, however the more than 356 titles (and over 650 discs) are already starting to fill them up! I "thin pack" many of my DVDs to help conserve space so I can fit more in the same space. Beyond anime, my favorite movie genres would probably be considered TV shows, considering how many I have.  After that comes drama and sci-fi/fantasy.

Another favorite pass time, as you might guess from my GameSpot profile, is video games. I mostly play on my PS2 (silver slimline) and my PS One.  More rarely I play on my PC, but that tends to be more sporadic.  For the console games, I tend to stick to RPGs, but I've also gotten into playing action/adventure games with good stories, some survivor horror stuff, and more sporadically, an occasional "sport" title like Tony Hawk Pro Skater.  Some of my favorite games/series include the Lunar series (PS), Legend of Dragoon (PS), Shadow Hearts series (PS2), the Onimusha series (PS2), and, of course, the Final Fantasy series.

One "game" I play daily is Neopets. When I'm on Neopets, I play a lot of the games and I'm working on building up my gallery and my collections. It really is fun and being free, its a great way to pass the time.  Right now, I'm not playing as much as I used to, but I still quite enjoy the site and in collecting the real life plushies. I have three accounts on the site, and four pets. I have four unis, Collectonian, my oldest pet, Swift_WindRider (Swifty for short), my only adopted pet and whom I spent a small fortune making her Island colored, my dream uni ShadowHeartGrayWing, and my recently adopted Inamosa who is on one my of sides. On my other side accounts I have a blue Cybunny named MyHoppity, named after my beloved stuffed bunny.

More sporadically, I enjoy gardening, photography, and painting. I'd like to learn Japanese, and have a Rosetta Stone set waiting to be opened.  I really enjoy editing over at Wikipedia, primarily on anime/manga articles, but also some television show articles, local stuff, and other non-fiction works.  Sometimes I pretend I'm a fiction writer, too. In November 2006, I finally took the plunge and signed up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I didn't make it to the 50k mark, but I did manage to get 24,805 words of my novel The Guardian written! That's the most I've ever written on one of my novels.  I didn't do as well at all in NaNo 2007 due to work, but still looking forward to NaNo 2008. 

Badges and the Like

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External Services:

Collectonian

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Mutual Friends (33):

Also Friend of (10):

Watching (15):

Member of (11):

Watching (6):