Interests and Hobbies
In 1995 I started playing soccer for Academy Sabres, in NE Philadelphia. I scored a goal during one season and became hooked on the sport. I played for 13 years for different clubs in the Northeast and for my High School, Archbishop Ryan. In my senior year our team went to the Catholic League Finals, we lost to Father Judge High School. Judge went on to the State Finals and lost to a team from Pittsburgh later on that year. After I stopped playing it was only two years before my hometown of Philadelphia bought a team franchise in Major League Soccer. I am a season ticket holder for the Philadelphia Union, and enjoy games on most Saturdays in the summer. I am also a member of the Sons Of Ben, a supporters group for the Philadelphia Union, who is directly responsible for getting the city its team.
While I attended Penn State University I took up Aikido. Aikido is the Japanese Martial art of blending with your opponent to use their attack on themselves. Ai means unifying, Ki means breath or energy, and Do means way or path. I have not trained continuously since I left Penn State, but plan to continue training when I’m finished with school and have more time and money to put into it.
I love Science Fiction, Anime, and social media. I’ve discovered Doctor Who in the last two years and became a Whovian junkie. I love the new episodes and the classics, and if you never heard of it, well give it a shot. When I downloaded the smartphone app Snapchat I had no idea how much fun drawing anime characters from my childhood could be. I decided to start an instagram page dedicated to Snapchat creations of characters from the Japanese anime “Dragonball Z”. As of writing this post, It has over 3000 fan submitted unique posts, and almost 5000 followers.
In December 2014, I started a podcast with my best friend and began airing it in January 2015. It focuses on all things nerd/geek culture. It is called the Dork Of All Trades.