Full name: Ryan Matthew (insert random mispronunciation here)
Date of birth: 21 November 1982
Height: about 6'3"
Weight: not as light as I used to be
Shoe size: 14 or so
Hometown: Princeton IL (population of 7600)
Family: Dad is a supervisor at Ace & delivers pizzas; Mom teaches music at a Christian school & makes baskets, crafts, etc; Nicole (who's 9 yrs older than me) is married to Jeff, has a vocal performance degree from Wheaton College, & is back in school in DE getting a nursing degree; Darin (who's 7 yrs older than me) is married to Kim, has a business/finance degree from Bradley University, & is the manager of a rent-a-car place at an airport; Ginger (who's 5 yrs older than me) is married to Brian, has a nursing degree from Armstrong Atlantic State University, is a neo-natal nurse, & has a son named Parker; Britani (who's 3 yrs younger than me) will be a senior in high school; & Caramello aka Mel aka Melster aka Poopy Butt aka Stinky is our rabbit that's as big as a horse
Elementary school & mascot: Jefferson Jaguars
Middle school & mascot: Washington Wildcats
Jr High & mascot: Logan Lions
High school & mascot: Princeton Tigers
First paid job: walking beans on Matt's farm
Longest held job: Pizza Hut for about 3 yrs
Toughest job: full-case filler at the Ace Hardware Retail Support Center
Future job: college biology professor
Interests: spending time w/my fianc� Melissa, science & its relationship to my faith, The Simpsons, music, movies, baseball, basketball, Trivial Pursuit, duct tape, eating, sleeping, discussing science & theology along with maybe some philosophy, making websites, & some other wicked sweet stuff
Musical abilities: played percussion in the school band for 4 yrs & have played guitar since the spring of 2000 or so
Books I like: The Biblical Flood (Davis Young), Mere Christianity (CS Lewis), A Brief History of Time (Stephen Hawking), To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee), Wise Blood (Flannery O'Connor), Catcher in the Rye (JD Salanger), Lord of the Flies (William Golding), Steppenwolf (Herman Hesse), Christian Theology (Allister McGrath), & some other great pieces of work that I am forgetting right now
Poems I like: "Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town" (ee cummings), "Little Giddings" (TS Elliott), "The Tiger" (William Blake), "Ever-Ever Land" (ee cummings), "Erlk�nig" (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe), "Mending Wall" (Robert Frost), & other great prose that I can't think of right now
Restaurants I like: Outback, Chinese Gourmet Express, Fazolis, Applebees, Dennys, Wendys, McDonalds, the Crapple, Oriental Gardens, the Princeton Truck Stop (???), & probably some others
Favorite beverages: Mountain Dew, A&W Root Beer, Kool-Aid, milk, Dr Pepper, Gatorade (especially riptide rush), Sobe orange cream, Yoohoo, apple juice, orange juice mixed w/Sprite, & low-fat delicious thick & creamy non-alcoholic egg nog
Favorite super hero: Batman
Favorite action figures: He-Man, Batman, Thundercats, & of course GI Joes
Favorite TV shows growing up: Batman (yes, the campy '60s version), Masters of the Universe, Thundercats, Today's Special, American Gladiators, The Simpsons, & others
Favorite TV shows: The Simpsons, The Family Guy (RIP), Late Night With Conan O'Brien, Seinfeld (RIP), That '70s Show, Boston Public, Joe Millionaire (RIP), & others

Stuff you might not know about me

• In high school, I was an athlete. I ran cross-country & track on varsity all four years, & I played basketball all four years as well. I earned 10 varsity letters altogether, was co-captian of the basketball team, was all-conference & MVP two times each in cross-country, & was named Athlete of the Year during my senior year of high school.
• Prior to my sophomore year of high school, I was out running with some of my cross-country teammates when I was clipped from behind by an old woman in her Buick going about 30 mph. She hit my left leg, sending me flipping backward, hitting my head on my the passenger side mirror & leaving a massive dent in the hood. I didn't break any bones, but I had road rash down the side of my head (leaving scabs in my hair for months), almost no skin on the bottom of my right forearm, a huge chunk of skin tissue taken out of my wrist (I could nearly see bone), a huge abrasion on my right shoulder & hip, rocks that had to be dug out from both of my knees, & bone bruises in the back of my calves. I laid on a mattress in my living room for a week & a half...& then I started running again. I didn't miss a single meet.
• I studied German for five years, & ich liebe noch Deutsch zu sprechen.
• When I was born, I weighed 11 lbs & was 24 inches long. My mom tells me that the doctor said I looked ready for a Happy Meal & a milkshake.
• I had blonde banana curls when I was a small child, which my dad made my mom cut off when people began mistaking me for a little girl.
• I am die-hard St. Louis Cardinals fan, & I still follow Cardinals baseball.
• I used to be a huge baseball card collector. I still have the thousands upon thousands of cards I accumulated. Ozzie Smith was my favorite player, & I collected over 700 of his cards, including two of his rookie cards.
• In 6th grade, I won the Bureau County Young Authors competition in my age group. The category? Poetry. Looking back at those poems now, man, did I suck.
• Before I started kindergarten, I always wanted to play with my brother's GI Joes while he was at school. My mom would always catch me when I got into them.