OT: Intro Profile

[Charme]

Thank you so very much for the invite to your group! 

THE OLD CROWD - INTRO

***Name:
Rebecca Bowen

***Nicknames/IDs:
Charme, dontask2much, travismac on Live Journal

***Age:
40

***Family:
William, my very old and absolutely brilliant cat, plus 2 dogs and a man I keep around to mow the grass, chop wood, and do "guy" things :)

***Home
Charles Town, WV with access to the Shenandoah River from my backyard

***Birthday, Place of Birth:
Sept 11th,  Alexandria, VA

***Education/Job/Role in Life etc:
University level - I work as an associate department head for information technology services at a well known nonprofit federally funded research and development company here in the US. My role in life? There's no doubt it is to provide wit/humor where I can and crisis intevention in sticky situations, which sometimes I manage to accomplish at the same instant. :) Oh, and I imagine part of my role is to feed that man I've locked up around here....

***Other things we might want to know about you:
A short while ago, I lived for 3 years in a remote area of Alaska and I've seen and photographed various wildlife there, plus to learned to live "off the land" so to speak.  I am a professional photographer, and have sold some of my works to various recognizable publications. I'm also gifted (or cursed, depends on whose pocketbook it comes out of) with an enhanced reading and comprehension ability and could read by the time I was 3 years old.  I should have stock in Borders for how much I spend there, since a book the length of OoP takes me about 4 1/2 - 5 hours to complete, so your average novel of 300-400 pages is completed and quotable in about 2 1/2 - 3 hours. I give away some books I don't plan to keep (not the Harry Potters ones, no way - my friendship and generosity only goes so deep) weekly to my friends and encourage them to "pass them on" hoping I'll never get all of them back, otherwise moving around in the house might be a problem....

***First contact with Harry Potter:
I first came in contact with Harry Potter back 3 years ago when seeing a older, quite distinguished fellow reading GoF on the subway when I was enroute to a meeting at the Pentagon.  I was flabbergasted - this guy is reading a kid's book? What's THAT all about? I bought and read PS/SS the very same day, and by the end of the week, had purchased and read all I could. 

***Favourite Potter things (books, characters, ships, fics, objets
d'Art, general enthusing):
My favourite book of the septology is OoP - to my way of thinking, we start to get more answers finally than questions and I *like* all the anger, darkness and such Harry experiences in this book. While I have a Snape fetish of sorts, I think I most enjoy Ron's "down to earth" humor. I'm also very, very curious about the Patronus Charm, as I suspect the spell wasn't originally used for repelling Lethifolds an if that's true, it begets the question of what exactly it *was* used for and how it might be used in future books. I think Lupin's not evil, and Snape may be a plot "red herring" for redemption and  some fans give the dear Professor far too much credit for being on the extreme side of "good". Centaurs are beyond my comprehension and borderline annoying to me, and Fudge needs a smack upside his head with a very stout wand. 

***Extent of Potter obsession:
Moderate. I think I can accurately say it's a hobby of mine to discuss these books and see what others think and feel about what they've read, and that's the part that interests me the most. I enjoy online "communities" and "messageboards" and I've ran a few successful ones in my time. ( I might be one of the few who has experience with the Internet which doesn't include Yahoo, IRC chat programs, and the like.  Back in the day, we didn't have such intuitive clients on the desktop and Internet like access wasn't as easy to get.)   I don't go so far as to subscribe to fanfiction much, although there are a few fanfiction authors in the great Internet beyond I enjoy reading. I'm also enamored with Kneasyisms and have missed them for the last month or so as he's exclusively appearing here, which is probably going to get him teased unmercifully :) 

***Other interests/activities:
Other than my "geek" tendencies, I also love astronomony, am a certified PADI dive instructor, and pretty good with a Glock 40. :) (Remember, there are bears in the wilds of Alaska where you need that Glock.) My interest in all things Egyptian started back in 7th grade, where I mummified a frog for the science fair, and no, I'm not joking!

***Current/recent reading:
The list is too long, but I'll give you what I've managed to plow through since December :)  I'd never read Pullman's "His Dark Materials" series, and after reading a dissertation online discussing the religious connotation differences between Pullman, Lewis and Rowling, I was hooked. I also reread The Chronicles of Narnia directly after His Dark Materials. The funniest fiction I've read recently is written by Christopher Moore called "Lamb;" if you offend easily in the religious sense don't read it! "Lamb" begat the reading of all of Moore's other books.  Others I've enjoyed recently include Gregory MacGuire's books (all of them) and Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell, and Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series. Nonfiction? Yep, but mostly releases dealing with terrorism, 9/11, and the Bush administration. Worst written book on the face of the planet, IMO? Bill Clinton's "My Life." Old Bill needs to learn to paraphrase.

***Current/recent listening:
Audiobooks from audible.com, AC/DC in my Mustang CD player at the moment, along with Def Leppard, KISS, and Whitesnake

***Current/recent viewing:
Eddie Izzard's Unrepeatable (DVD) and I'm totally besotted with JJ Abram's "Lost" series. 



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