The Short Form

• Husband of a wonderful wife, Margie.
• Father of an active little girl, Katherine (a/k/a "Kitten").
• Pointy-haired application development manager of an IT department for a major engineering company. Previous to that a documentation and standards manager. Previously a desktop and network services manager, Oracle DBA, Xbase programmer, and help desk guy. Previous to that an elementary school teacher (two years, LAUSD). Previous to that a mainframe (VM/SP) systems programmer.
• Liberal arts graduate (History major) from Pomona College.
• Born at the very end of the Baby Boom generation (depending on how you define it).
• Episcopalian, in an unorthodox way (which may be redundant).

Find out more about Dave The Name.

Shallow Thoughts

• I read a lot. Mostly fiction, mostly sf/fantasy, with some detective and mystery bits on the side for leavening. I also have a crack-like addiction to comic books. I spend a lot of time walking around with a book in my hand, including walking to and from lunch. My wife says my super-hero name would be Easily-Distracted-by-Reading-Material Lad.
• I watch an odd mixture of TV. Very little on the networks. Very little on a schedule. A lot of re-runs. Having a DVR has been a Godsend. Having a little girl who enjoys super-hero cartoons has also been a Godsend.
• I play (and GM) Role-Playing Games. So far as I know, I’ve never encountered Satan in any of them.
• I write. Not as much as I’d like or I should. I used to draw a lot, too. Not enough time in the day …
• I blog, therefore I am.

Deep Thoughts

I think the Golden Rule is a pretty neat thing, and try to live that way as much as I can. Everything else is gilding the lily, in my opinion, though I'm always more than happy to debate any particular moral, ethical, philosophical, political, or other sort of proposition you'd care to.

• Civil libertarian. Social liberal. Economic moderate. Probably something of a Jacksonian when it comes to foreign policy. I dislike whiners, demagogues, easy-answerers, and opportunists on all ends of the political spectra.
• With great rights come great responsibilities.
• It’s a shame that philosophical ideals don’t always match up pragmatic reality. We live in an analog world, not a digital one, so binary black-and-white choices and reflexive adherence to absolutes are rarely useful or applicable. Deal with it.
• It's a shame that pragmatic reality doesn't always live up to our philosophical ideals. There is right and wrong, even if we aren't always gifted with the knowledge of which is which. One can too easily get lost in a world of greys, and so guarded commitment to some absolutes (while acknowleding one's own fallibility) can be essential to sliding down that old slippery slope. Deal with it.
• Life isn’t fair, at least on the micro level. Deal with it. But don’t deal with it by making it more unfair.
• There is justice. Sooner or later, there is justice. Just hope there’s mercy, too.
• Nobody has a Monopoly on the Truth. On the other hand, some folks haven’t passed Go recently.
• Tolerance does not equal agreement or support.
• Everybody is irrationally picky about certain things. That includes you. It certainly includes me. The trick is to recognize it and admit it, even if you can’t change it, and to not go ballistic if others don’t share your pickiness.
• Spelling and grammar and vocabulary count. Or they should, dammit. (See previous point.)
• Aesthetics are not morality. Don’t confuse Taste for Truth, Icky for Evil, or Preference for Perfection.
• Power without oversight will be abused.
• Equal rights does not necessarily mean equal outcomes. But unequal outcomes might mean unequal rights.
• People are way too worried about on-line privacy. Except for the Big Corporations, who aren’t nearly worried enough about it.
• Big corporations and the accumulation and use of capital have done incredibly wonderful things, and those things outweigh, by and large, the evils they have also done. Which does not mean that those evils were not largely avoidable, or that We the People don’t need to keep their feet in the fire to avoid future evils.
• No single cause is all-important. Zealots who feel that way usually end up being a lot more of a threat than a help.
• God will not eternally damn you to infinite torment for a finite lifetime of mistakes. But by the time He’s done rubbing your nose in it, you’ll wish He had.
• The true Mystery is how to have a personal relationship with an infinite being. Fortunately that being is omnipotent, so She’ll do all the hard work.
• Mind your own business. But love your neighbor as yourself.
• Think about the precedent you’re setting. Somebody else will.
• It’s your prerogative to ignore what I have to say. It’s not your prerogative to keep me from saying it, nor to keep me from hearing what someone else has to say.
• Your Mileage May Vary. Maybe that’s the point.
• If hard choices of life were easy, everyone could make them. Maybe that’s the point, too.
• There is a point. Don’t expect to understand it yet. You’re still in kindergarten. So am I. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep 'trying' to understand. Indeed, I think that's also the point.
• Debating theological niceties is fine, and even useful, but if it distracts us from the Greatest Commandments, then we're doing something wrong.
• Bad actions can lead to bad thoughts. Good actions can lead to good thoughts. We do what we are, and we are what we do, sooner or later.
• We can’t control the world. We can only (barely) control our own reactions to it. Happiness is largely a choice, not a right or entitlement.
• Take care of the little stuff and a lot of the big stuff will take care of itself.
• Things almost never turn out as horribly — or as wonderfully — as it seems they will. It’s the occasional exception to this that keeps us on our toes, both in hope and in dread.
• If you let yourself get pushed around, you will be.
• Sometimes force does solve things. Unfortunately. It’s difficult to tell sometimes whether it’s more unfortunate that this is the case, or that some people don’t realize it.

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