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 and joined the faculty 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. 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 (though 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. WHAT COMMITMENTS WILL BE CONSUMING YOUR CYCLES THIS SEMESTER? In addition to this class, I'm also teaching CNM190/CS194-8 (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 the director of the Weiner Lecture Archives project. I'm on the computing and networking committee, 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 with my awesome grad student (and your TA) Luke. I'm also a faculty co-advisor for BFOIT, 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 5-yr old son (starting kindergarten!) and a 1.5-yo daughter with whom I try to spend as much time as possible. Phew!