I'm a masshole through and through. I was born here (Norwood, MA). Raised here (Foxboro, MA and North Attleboro, MA). I did my undergrad here (at MIT, living in Cambridge, MA) and now I'm doing a masters here (also at MIT, living in Somerville, MA now). Yes,  I have been other places and seen other things. I've been to California a few times, and I've even driven cross country once to get back. I've been to the Caribbean a few times and Hawaii once. I've also been all over the Northern east coast. And nothing I've seen has ever made me want to leave New England (although the Caribbean and Hawaii are tempting....nobody really lives there, right?).

Wow...there were a lot of parenthesis in that paragraph, I'll try to avoid that in the future. Anyway, as I said I was raised in Foxboro and North Attleboro. I went to North Attleboro high school, and had a ball. I played football for four years (we won 2 state titles). I threw for the winter and spring track teams for 3 years (we were always good, I think we won a state title all three of those years, but I never paid attention). And then in my senior year when I blew out my shoulder playing football and couldn't throw (although according to the training staff there was nothing wrong), I made the brilliant decision to wrestle. I mean logically it was a terrible decision, but I really feel I got a lot out of it. It really challenged me, you know? Anyway, after the last wrestling tournament, when my shoulder fell out and wouldn't go back in, I had surgery.

Oh yea, and there was also learning to be done there. But, I can't say I was terribly focused on it at the time. But I did well enough to get into a few decent schools, so...

In the Fall of 1999 I came to MIT. MIT used to have this really great housing system, that let in coming freshman shop around for which living situation was the best fit for them. I was one of the last few classes that got to take part, and experience the incredible 4 or 5 days that was rush at the time. After much hemming and hawing, I settled on DKE. You see....back in the spring, when I was deciding which school to go to, I came to the Campus Preview Weekend (CPW) at MIT. I had already had my mind made up that MIT was far too dorky for me. And while I wasn't wrong with that assessment, the brothers at DKE, who were hosting me for that weekend, showed me a good time. I realized there were people at MIT whose lives didn't revolve around books and learning, and who knew how to go out and have a good time when the work was done. I liked that idea and that's why I choose to come to MIT.  And I guess that's why I choose DKE once I got here.

For my first three years I played football at MIT....until that pesky blowing out of the shoulder crept up on me again. We weren't that good, and our coach made it a point to let us know before every game in his "pep talk." But it was fun, at times.

When I got here I had visions of majoring in physics. I quickly realized that the only thing you can do with a physics undergrad degree is flip burgers or get a PhD. At the time 8 years of school seemed like a nightmare, so I nixed that idea. Without putting too much thought into it, I declared course 2 (MIT speak for I registered to major in Mechanical Engineering). My reasoning was that it was the closest thing to physics that was practical. Also, I figured I could put whatever I learnt to use building cars, which is something I always enjoyed doing with my dad.

However, that summer when I sat down to pick classes to take for my sophomore year's fall term, I realized that I wasn't the least bit interested in any of the Mech E. classes. This prompted me to switch to course 6, which is Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. I got that idea from the fact that over the summer I had a job writing these little java robots that queried databases for a Professor in the political science dept. I kinda liked the work, and it turned out I was pretty good at it, so I figured I'd give course 6 a try.

Three painful years later, after I questioning the decision to come to MIT and to major in 6 (widely regarded as  the toughest major at MIT) many a time....my masochistic side took over again, and I decided to stay another year and get a Masters of Engineering degree in course 6. And that ladies and gentlemen, brings us to where we are today....

Well....almost. I made it through one final year of hell, and it was all worth it. I'm now working at France Telecom R&D's boston lab (actually in cambridge).