WHERE DID YOU GROW UP? WHAT WAS YOUR PATH TO CAL? I grew up in The Bronx, NY ("You got a problem with dat?" -- that's how they talked in my old neighborhood, no joke) until I was 9. The Bronx is one of the 5 Boroughs of New York City, if you didn't know. I moved to Westchester (suburb of New York) for a year and then upstate to a small town near Cooperstown, NY (where the Baseball Hall of Fame is located). I graduated from Cooperstown Central High, went on to MIT where I got a double major in CS and EE and graduated in 5 years. Then I came to Cal as a grad student, did a MS in Game Theory in 1995 and a PhD in Graphics in 2000, got bitten by the teaching bug and joined the faculty (in the teaching track) in 2000. HOW MUCH PROGRAMMING HAVE YOU DONE (& WHAT LANGUAGES)? I started with Basic in high school in 1985. At MIT I learned Scheme (in the class CS61A was modeled after, taught by the authors of SICP) and C. When I got to Berkeley, I learned Tcl/Tk, Java, Python, Unix, Matlab, Mathematica, html & perl. My current favorite language is Python, definitely, although BYOB/Snap! is a close second. WHAT ARE YOUR HOBBIES? With two little ones, I no longer have time for hobbies. Their hobbies are my hobbies, i.e., going to parks, playgrounds, museums, and biking around. I've gotten more into photography and videography, because that's something I can do with them. However, before I had kids my hobbies were: puzzles, games, golf, basketball, ultimate, animation, juggling, programming, classic comedy sketches, movies, genealogy, and sharing jokes. WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR TALENTS & SKILLS? I can juggle 5 balls, ride a unicycle (poorly), spin things on my finger, play the harmonica and congas badly (partly because I can't read music), recite entire Monty Python sketches, hit a golf ball 275 yds (though I have yet to break 90!), do an L hang, and wiggle my ears. HAVE YOU DONE ANYTHING REMARKABLE? HAS ANYTHING MEMORABLE HAPPENED TO YOU? In high school, I tied the school record in the 200m dash (23.2 s) and I was the fastest rapid calculator in central NY (~100 high schools). My high school basketball team went to the state final four game, and our team was recently inducted to our high school athletic hall of fame! A few years ago I lived in Melbourne (Australia) for 5 months, and I climbed half-dome a few years ago. I've seen a bit of the world (Australia, New Zealand, China, Mexico, Canada, Venezuela, Brazil, Qatar, Greece) but have lots of travel ahead of me. Oh, I was recently chosen as an ACM Distinguished Educator, quite humbling. WHAT COMMITMENTS WILL BE CONSUMING YOUR CYCLES THIS SEMESTER? In addition to this class, I'm also co-teaching CS61C (Great Ideas in Computing Architecture), CNM190 (Advanced Digital Animation) and running the self-paced courses. I run the GamesCrafters undergraduate computational game theory undergraduate research and development group. I supervise two awesome DeCals: UCBUGG and MS-DOS X. I'm on the undergraduate study committee, and I do EECS and L&S faculty advising. I'm on the ACM Education Board and the chair of a task force that is trying to launch a new Web 2.0 collection of "Technology for Computing Educators". I'm involved with the continuing development of the Ensemble NSDL computing portal. I'm also a faculty co-advisor for BFOIT, local faculty champion of our CSTA chapter, and I'm active in my local PTA. I've got a 2-hour commute each way (1 hr on BART and time to drop-off or pick-up my little one from school). Finally, and most importantly, I've got a wonderful wife, a 7-yr old son (in 2nd grade!) and a 4-yo daughter with whom I try to spend as much time as possible. Phew!