This is an interesting thread. Well, at least it was up until now...
The true name of
RJDiogenes is Rick from Boston (Hub of the Universe, Beantown); I'm 42, SWM, E&FS.
My job is managing a hospital-based midwifery/doula program which services a large urban population. It's fascinating work. Right now, I have 92 women (and, over the past 10 years, literally hundreds) working for me, of all ages, from all over the world, of all ethnic backgrounds, from dozens of cultures, and dozens of countries; talk about living la vida
Star Trek. Another interesting thing about this job is that the office building I work in used to be the Maternity Building; I was born two flights up from where I'm sitting right now.
I first became interested in SF when I was in grade school, resulting from my obsessions with dinosaurs and astronomy. I started out reading comics (e.g.
Fantastic Four, Magnus Robot Fighter, From Beyond the Unknown, and Dan Barry's
Flash Gordon newspaper strip). I started watching
Trek late in the 3rd season, just before it was cancelled; but then good old Channel 56 picked it up and I watched it every night for years. Other favorite shows throughout the ages include, but are not limited to, the original
Outer Limits, Lost in Space, The Night Stalker, Tales of the Gold Monkey, Babylon 5 and
Firefly. The only shows I'm watching regularly at the moment are
Enterprise, Alias and
Angel.
My favorite author is Arthur C Clarke (I still have the two issues of
Galaxy that serialized
Rendevous With Rama that I bought off the newstand). I also love Asimov, Heinlein, Niven and Gibson. Having recently read
Chindi and
Omega, I've been buying up Jack McDevitt's backlist (
Deepsix is next on my list). I belong to the SFBC, BOMC, QPBC, SABC, and am a much-too-frequent visitor to Amazon (
not the one in South America).
Magazines? Oh, yeah. I subscribe to
Analog, Asimov's, F&SF, Weird Tales, Absolute Magnitude, Realms of Fantasy and
Fantastic for fiction; for non-fiction, I subscribe to
Archaeology, Discover, Popular Science, Science News, Smithsonian, Natural History, Wired, Islands, American Heritage, American History, Rolling Stone, Starlog, Comic Book Artist, Femme Fatales, Air & Space, High Adventure and probably a couple of others that slip my mind at the moment. I also subscribe to about twenty or so comics. Do I own lots of books? You should see my apartment; on second thought, maybe you shouldn't...
I belong to several organizations, including
Save The Children, the
Smithsonian, Southern Poverty Law Center, The Cousteau Society and The Planetary Society.
Other interests: I have a music collection going back to the 1930s (but I prefer late 60s through early 80s, for obvious reasons); love old movies (especially
bad old movies... and new movies that
pretend to be bad old movies); old radio shows; old pulp magazines (can only afford reprints, sadly). I could go on and on, but I see your eyes are glazing over; as it says in my profile, "Let's just say the arts and sciences and leave it at that."
Hobbies? Aside from the above, I also write (including two
Trek stories for
Strange New Worlds which were rejected for overuse of original characters-- maybe I'll post them someday), I do some cartooning and I've been experimenting with interactive fiction and 3D modeling (mostly Poser and Bryce).
Most importantly, though, I have a nephew Jason (5) and a niece Marissa (4), who are my favorite people in the world... and make me very happy I never had kids.
One-line character description: An uberliterate Bohemian couch potato who somehow grew up to be a workaholic against his better judgment.
Merry Christmas, everybody (I'm an atheist, but I'll celebrate any holiday where I get presents or the day off
).
That sounds cheesy, doesn't it? Anyway, I started watching TNG and then DS9 after my bro introduce it to me. I also enjoy building things, only a little though. 
And you call me Bobby or Rob...or whatever you want for a few dollars. 
I never finished college, which I've always deeply regretted. 
The quadrupeds are my babies. 
