While I'm in the process of updating my personal web page (due to my laziness, this could take many months, or even years), you'll probably
find plenty of references to "Kung Fu Joe." I think this nickname needs a bit of explanation. In high school, a friend of mine (who shall
remain anonymous. For now we'll just call him Noshir
) started insisting on calling me Kung Fu Joe,
because of my involvement in Chinese martial arts, and because "Kung Fu Erik" just doesn't sound right. At first, I
hated the name, but it stuck, and kinda grew on me, so I figured I might as well just accept it. So, what the heck? I named my old FTP site and web site using that name. I don't use the nickname in real life, though, and I'm only
called Kung Fu Joe
in person jokingly from time to time. The name isn't intended to be a slight at any martial artist named
Joe, and isn't supposed to make any rational sense. (Noshir
and "rational sense" rarely go together ;-)
Now that I'm studying gung fu under a man named Joe, I'm working on de-emphasizing the nickname on this website - I got the nickname long before I met Joe Salomone, but I don't want anyone to get confused and assume the nickname has anyting to do with him. It does not! (Is that emphatic enough?)
I've been involved in martial arts for most of my life. I started studying Poekoelan Tja Kalong (an Indonesian martial art more commonly known as Tjikalong or Cikalong) under Cheryl Dolce at age six, and kept up with it for only about a year and a half. I then went on to Liu Seong Gung Fu when I was 11, and have been studying that under Sifu George Reyngoudt since then. In early 2005, Sifu George's instructor, Joe Salomone, accepted me as his student. I currently run the Chinese-Indonesian Martial Arts Club in Northern Virginia, teach/attend classes when visiting home (Rochester, NY), and am an alumnus of the Chinese Martial Arts Association at Cornell.
If you'd like to learn a little bit about the system of Gung Fu that I study and teach, please check out the Chinese-Indonesian Martial Arts Club homepage.
I was introduced to computers at age 5, and have had an interest/involvement in them ever since. My main interest is as a user, but I tried unsuccessfully to get more interested in programming over the last few years (and may one day try again). Aside from just being a user, I operated a dial up BBS for 5 years, moderated a Fidonet message echo (ADLIB), and coordinated the North American section of a BBS network (SBCNet). I started by using an Apple IIe in school, later got a TRS-80 CoCo at home, and have since moved up to PC's. I'm currently using an Athlon XP-M 2500+ system with 1 gig of RAM (overclocked to Athlon XP 3200+ speed). (I was using this when I last updated this page on 30 Aug '05, when it had already been out of date for a year or so. Unless I update it, this will be out of date again in a few weeks, when I plan on doing some sort of significant upgrade).
While not as obsessed as some people I know, I spend a good deal of time watching movies, and enjoy keeping up on some of the latest home theater equipment. I can't justify actally spending the money on that stuff (not until we're in a house with a nice space for a home theater), but I've put together a decent entertainment system with my 36" Sharp TV, Pioneer DV-563A DVD/DVD-A/SACD player, and Atlantic Technology's T-70 speaker system, a nice full 5.1 speaker setup that sells for under $1000 (and the only noteworthy component to my setup), which I'm powering with Denon's AVR-1601 Dolby Digital / DTS receiver.
I've amassed a small but ever-expanding library of DVD's. I've published a list of them on DVDAficionado.com, along with my impressions of many of them.
I have absolutely no musical talent, but I love listening to it. When I'm not watching TV or playing
a computer game or something (i.e. when I'm not doing something else that involves sound), I've usually got some kind
of music playing. My tastes vary quite a bit, including the likes of J.S.Bach, John Williams, Weird Al, Pink Floyd,
The Who, and others. I like a lot of classical music and orchestral music in general, as well as a lot of classic
rock. I like most kinds of music, but I haven't been able (or willing) to acquire a taste for rap or country music, or
a few other genres that I feel defy the very definition of music.
It seems like a miscategorization to call Cheryl a Personal Interest,
which is the
only reason that she's at the end of this list. I met Cheryl in 1998, and quickly fell for her.
Unfortunately for me, she was involved with someone else at the time, so I did my best to keep our growing friendship
strictly platonic. Almost a year later, though, in September 1999, we started dating, and we married in July 2004.
Cheryl is the love of my life, and I'm lucky enough that she feels the same way about me. Though I don't have a page
up specifically about/for her, here's a decent picture of the two of us together.
Copyright © 1997-2007 Erik Harris.
