Oatmeal is my comfort food. I hate gardening but love flowers; not cut arrangements, but in the wild, outside. I have a deep and abiding respect for our military. Parades make me cry. Walking Dead is about the only TV I watch anymore.

I'm a hockey fan, like ... a serious hockey fan. I'm loyal to my Edmonton Oilers. Don't judge me (lol), the Nashville Predators and Ottawa Senators are good, too. I have single-seat, season tickets for the Fort Wayne Komets, and I'll generally try to hit the road games within a hundred-mile radius.

I read and write, and of course ... most folks do. But for me, it's not just in an educational sense. I've always loved to read, but I recently started writing, and found I adore that, too. If nothing else is available, I've been known to read the back of the cereal box.

I'm a wanna-be hiker, working on a "bucket list" of hikes like Knobstone (completed in four days mid-April 2014 - whoooo!), sectioning parts of the AT, and now and then looking west towards PCT.

I'm a camping/hiking gear head, and make regular pilgrimages to REI and other sporting goods stores.

I embrace my inner geek; I've been working in the tech field for a couple decades. A sometime PC gamer, I still play some EQ after all these years. What can I say, I'm loyal (see above, I'm an Oilers fan LOL). Yes, I've heard of WoW, and have a coupla toons there, too.

I love music of nearly any genre -- jazz, country, rock, alt rock, metal, classical, bluegrass, you name it, I listen to it. I can often be seen dancing through the house in the early mornings. But I really, REALLY love live music. My favorite thing with music, is seeing bands in small, dive bars [read: small, intimate venues]. If said bar [venue] has a good selection of premium tequila, then that's a plus!

For family, I have five wonderful kids spread out across the USA, and they've blessed me with six gloriously beautiful, intelligent, and funny granddaughters and a soon-to-be-cogitating grandson. Lights of my life. :)