And you, humble reader, may ask yourself, “Why did I start this site?”
The main reason is that I love history. It’s great and I enjoy learning those little nuggets of information that can wow and amaze people at parties and weddings. Who doesn’t want to know that the governor of New York and New Jersey from 1701 to 1708, Lord Cornbury, was a cross dresser? C’mon, this garbage is gold!
The secondary reason is that a podcast that I enjoy listening to will talk about stuff like this, and they take listener submissions. After you research a piece and put it together in a coherent but conversationally readable style, you have some expectation that it might make it on the air. But you’d be wrong about 95% of the time. And then it feels like all the work you did was for nothing. So why not put it here too? Enjoy.
I graduated from Baylor University, a fine school not renowned for their film department, with a degree in Radio, TV, and Film. I already loved movies at that point, but like most young people, I enjoyed studying how a movie was put together — the editing, the music, the little things that would slip past a lot of casual viewers. I started liking more arty directors, like Whit Stillman, Wes Anderson and Hal Hartley, but I continued to like actiony films also, dragging my then-girlfriend to see the Stallone-Snipes lovefest, Demolition Man. Anyway, I like most types of film, except for most romantic comedies, teen dance movies or recent Steve Martin films.
I currently work for AT&T and married to Kim, who runs her own marketing company, Trügenius . She builds websites for people and a lot of her stuff is pretty good. I’m also the dad to Noah and Peyton. I’m applying to the University of Texas at Dallas and, God willing, I’ll get accepted there so I can start towards Career 2.0 — getting my masters and then PhD in History.
1970 — Born at St. Paul Hospital in Dallas, TX
1977 — Saw Star Wars at Chip Cottingame’s birthday party. Ate first peanut butter sandwich
1982 — Cried at E.T., even though I didn’t want to
1989 — Graduate Highland Park HS, Dallas
1990 — Produce and star in first and last feature film, Spacekill: The 7th Sport (not listed on IMDb)
1992 — Begin filming sequel to Spacekill: The 7th Sport, tentatively dubbed Spacekill 2: Outer Space Messiahs. The project remains incomplete to this day
1992 — Go on double date with future wife (not together) to see Reservoir Dogs. Date did not end well. Distinctly remember being told, “If he sets that guy on fire we are leaving!”
1993 — Go on first unofficial date with future wife to see Kevin Kline in Dave
1993 — Attempted to film Open Your Eyes, Little Man, a mockumentary of the art world. I realize I don’t write very good dialogue.
1994 — Graduate Baylor University, B.A. in Radio/Television/Film
1997 — Married Kim
2002 — tellyouwhatithink.com launched
2003 — Noah born; We take Noah to see his first movie, American Splendor
2003 — Noah sees his second movie, The Station Agent
2005 — Noah loves to dance to the “I Like to Move It” song from Madagascar, often to his father’s chagrin’
2006 — Peyton is born. He still hasn’t been to a movie yet, but he sure loves “Blue’s Clues”
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