Mark's Personal Life

What do I do with myself when I'm not coding? This page contains links and information about my interests and hobbies. There's also a personal biography link here, if you care.

Photography

Over the years, I've been playing with photography, scanners and programs like Photoshop. My Photography page shows off some of my work with a 35mm camera.

Music

I grew up in a musical family, and have been annoying my neighbors with the electric guitar since I was 17. My Music page contains some information, links and images about music I like.

Biking

I've been riding bicycles and motorcycles in and around New York for years, including day trips around New York City, a month cycling through France, and motorcycle trips across the US. The Biking page has photos, tips and stories about my riding.

Tai Chi

In late 1999 I realized that I had gotten too fat and needed to start working out to offset all the hours sitting in front of the monitor. I was lucky enough to hook up with Sifu Lenny Aaron, who started teaching me Tai Chi and the Yang form. It changed my life, and I feel better than I have in years. He eventually introduced me to his Sifu and the Ying Jow Pai school here in Manhattan. Check them out, they are run by the venerable Sifu Leung Shum and are one of the best martial arts schools here in New York.

Friends On The Net

Like most people who work online, I've got several friends who run their own web pages. Yes, they're all geeks like me (but don't call Steve that to his face). Here is a set of links to some of them:

• Steven's Karate Page. My ex-roommate Sensei Steven Rittersporn has put up a page about Shobayashi Shorin-ryu Karate. He's also an excellent graphic designer, and all-around artist.
• Raffi's Demonstration Page. As I mentioned on the main page, the graphic design here was done by Raffi Kazanjian. He's a very smart HTML Developer with several years experience building great web pages out of other people's artist visions, no matter how bizzare.
• Harold's Home Page. Harold Van Aalderen is my riding partner and good friend. He's also a top-notch UNIX systems administrator, and an Internet Security Expert. Oh, most of his home page is in Dutch, except for his Diary page chronicling our cross-country trip to JavaOne.
• Vladimir's Home Page. Vladimir Geshanov is a coding partner and good friend that I met while working on Ibax during 2000. He's very smart, and has managed to put up with my technical direction while learning far more than I ever expected him to about Java, VBScript, SQL queries, and coding discipline in general. He has so many other webs running, I can't list them all, but at least also look at Vlad's Code Samples.

Autobiography

Every once and a while someone asks if I have a biography. This page explains a little about who I am, including a personal photo.