As I'm sure you've noticed, thus far I have chosen to remain more-or-less anonymous on this Blog. This was not an easy decision -- I've always thought that people should be willing to stand behind their viewpoints. But the problem is that this blog is more than just a collection of political or social views. It contains musings of all sorts about my daily life, my job, my coworkers, etc. I don't have a problem with the rest of the Blogosphere reading my little rants, but I'm not too thrilled about the idea of a coworker logging on and discovering that they've just been skewered in full view of everyone on the Internet. And as you may have seen recently, I have some doubts about whether I'll even be in my current job a year from now. I'd rather not broadcast the details of my job-hunting exploits to my boss, at least until I figure out what my real intentions are.

Being anonymous hasn't been the perfect solution, since I've found that I self-censor some things to avoid giving away information that would let people figure out my "true identity." (This is not as difficult as it sounds -- I recently stumbled on an anonymous blog written by someone who I've dealt with professionally, and was able to figure out who was writing it by looking at clues scattered throughout the writing.)

As a compromise, I've decided to post some information about who I am in a very general sense. Loyal readers are unlikely to find anything new or scandalous here, but I figured I'd at least you can confirm your suspicions about what sort of nutcase I really am.

I am a 20-something male, currently living and working in Nashville, Tenn. I grew up just outside of Washington, D.C., and went to college in upstate New York where I majored in English. (I still have a lot of friends in the Northeast, which accounts for some of my intermittent scheming to get out of Nashville, and for the number of frequent-flyer points I've managed to accumulate.) I moved here about 4 1/2 years ago, and work in the technology field for a somewhat recognizable company in the "communications industry."

Off the job, much of my free time right now is spent working toward a Master's degree in Technology Management -- a longterm project that began in January 2001 and will probably conclude sometime late next year. The idea being to prove that someone who spent college reading Foucault and Faulkner can have at least a passing clue about Apache and aggregate database functions. I'm taking classes online from the University of Maryland's University College. I have mixed feelings about the online format. On the one hand, it is definitely a boon for people with unpredictable work hours or travel schedules (I have had classes -- and even done group projects -- with military personnel stationed overseas). On the other hand, since almost all interaction is done via the web, you lose some of the social aspects of a traditional classroom. And you have to be very disciplined to force yourself to do all of the reading and writing.

Politically speaking, I guess I'd probably stake my claim in the Liberal/Progressive camp, although I try to avoid blindly subscribing to any one viewpoint. I honestly believe that Bill Clinton, while admittedly a schmuck in his personal life, was a very good president in terms of domestic policy. (And I thought that wasting millions of taxpayer dollars to essentially prosecute him for gettin' it on in the Oval Office was a travesty.)

Well, that's a start. Perhaps I'll make an effort to reveal more details about myself in the future. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on the good and bad points of online anonymity...