Favorite Movies: Sneakers, The Right Stuff, Amadeus, Glory, The Empire Strikes Back, A Beautiful Mind, Da Vinci Code, The Imitation Game, Angels and Demons, Das Leben der Anderen, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Favorite Musicians / Composers: J.S. Bach, Mozart, Olafur Arnalds, Pink Floyd, Beirut, The Cure, Coldplay, Supertramp, Beethoven, Johann Johannson, Rush, The Police, Sigur Ros, Hammock, Dustin O'Halloran, Max Richter, This Will Destroy You, Trentemoller, The Last Days, Yann Tiersen, Ab Ovo, Brian Crain, Hans Zimmer, James Horner
Favorite Quote:Man kann in Gesellschaft unterrichtet werden, aber man wird nur in Einsamkeit inspiriert. (One can be instructed in the company of others, but one is inspired only in solitude.) Goethe
For anyone interested: my mission is to try and contribute a small measure of sanity and intellectual substance to an otherwise mad and intellectually depraved world. With earnest, I attempt to add academic substantiation (citations) to pages that strike my fancy—no matter how unusual they are. As a historian, the general trend is towards themes related to my subject matter expertise but my contributions are by no means thereby constrained.
Realistically, I do not consider myself the foremost authority on anything as very few truly are (despite their mature education and credentials) - that does not mean however, we should refrain from contributing valuable academic content when and where we can. My Ph.D. is in European history and strategic studies with a particular focus on Roman and Germanic peoples of Late Antiquity. My secondary specialization is modern Germany. My graduate degree is in European history as is my undergraduate degree. My eclectic nature shows in that I also have minors in math and chemistry.
Despite the fact that many are put off by intellectuals, I cherish them. They make this world interesting and shape both their environment and mold our history. People who use wonderful expressions in multiple languages, worship J.S. Bach as a veritable god (or one at least sent by the gods), engage in heavy philosophy (no matter the genre), enjoy dabbling in abstract mathematical discourse, or those who try to decipher and interpret historical trends, are of my ilk.
Two things that most amaze me in life: (1) the Mandelbrot set, (2) the seeming transcendence of Tibetan monks /
Two things I most abhor: (1) the intransigent moral absolutism of bigots, (2) ratiocinative oversimplification/reductionism
My hobbies (past and present): Tai Chi Chuan, chess, long-range target shooting, and motorcycles.
