Thulcandra

Howdy!

Gender: male
Birthdate: 13 January 1963
Birthplace: Washington, D.C.
Current residence: Barrhaven, Ontario, Canada
Occupation: Software developer
Employer: A big bank
Marital status: Married since September 1991; two kids
Religious affiliation: born-again Christian; http://www.metbiblechurch.ca/
Politics: USA: Republican; Canada: Conservative/Reform

Things I really like

• Playing with my kids.
• Watching movies with my wife.
• Designing and building cool software.
• Playing guitar and piano.
• Spicy food.
• Spending time with Christian friends.
  • Christian teens sometimes call this "hanging with my churchies." I'm too old to use this kind of terminology.
• Teaching in the adult Sunday school in my church.
• Spicy food.
• Running and lifting weights to exhaustion, or thereabouts.
• Did I mention spicy food?
• Peter Jackson's LotR movies.

Things I really don't like

• Michael Moore-type people who knowingly tell blatant lies with the volume cranked up to 10.
• President Ahmanutjob of Iran, and anybody else who thinks it's cool to kill people who aren't like you.
• Western political leaders who think that grovelling to President Ahmanutjob will make him back down.
  • Political correctness in general.
• Getting fifteen minutes down the highway and suddenly remembering something you didn't bring.

What's with the weird nickname?

Thulcandra is the name of the planet Earth in the ancient Hressa-Hlab language, from Silent Planet trilogy by C. S. Lewis. The derivation of the word is Thulc (silent) + handra (either "planet" or "land"). To the inhabitants of the other worlds, Earth is the "silent" planet because there has been no communication from it for an enormous amount of time — ever since its ruling Oyarsa, the Bent One, was driven by the other Oyarses out of Deep Heaven into the atmosphere of the Earth. Now you know.

BTW, I originally wrote the Wikipedia article on the first novel of the trilogy, Out of the Silent Planet, a few years ago. Absolutely nothing of my original text remains.