Artistic influences, Hobbies and Pastimes on the next page:
(and my favorite available pop-culture movies, books, and score CDs):

Big influences in my creative input are mostly fairly popular in modern pop culture. Initially, I was greatly creatively influenced by filmmakers George Lucas for his entire Star Wars Saga and Steven Spielberg for his better movies. Then, along with comic strips in general, the mid-1980's era Transformers: Generation One cartoons & The Movie (1986) and 1980's era G.I. Joe cartoons and comics by Marvel and Sunbow, brought me a long way in terms of my desire to be a cartoonist/graphic artist. I don't care for most modern revisions of either series, but I love their '80s incarnations. Later on, comic book artists Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee, Arthur Adams, Michael Turner, along with cartoonist Bill Watterson (for, obviously, his comic strip, "Calvin and Hobbes"), and comic book writer/creator Stan Lee all influenced my illustration and cartooning skills, playing a big role in development of my artistic abilities. All of the above influenced my style and some people can still spot it even years later. I'm also a fan of writers Eric Van Lustbader for his Nicholas Linnear novels and Larry Hama for his impressive run in the 1980s-90s G.I. Joe series. Both of these writers had the largest impact on my storytelling with their long and detailed story arcs featuring masters of ninjutsu and military operations. However, perhaps last but not least, my greatest artistic role model is countless multi-time award-winning composer John Williams, who's world-renowned music, tireless work ethic and quiet success are such a deep inspiration for me, that I have a world-class collection of his music on CD, LP, and DVD. A good chunk of my favorite TV shows, movies, and soundtrack CDs are found on this page. I recommend them to anybody that hasn't seen them. But none of these role models and inspirations can be anything without hard work, support of family, friends, teachers, and most importantly, God-given talent (oops, that last part just lost the angry atheists and agnostics reading, haha.).

Hobbies and Pastimes:
My hobbies are a treasure trove of what one would call guilty pleasures. Perhaps my favorite is racing go-karts. This is a website that features me, my friends, and family go-kart racing every weekend behind Galletta's Greenhouse and Oswego Speedway from June-October in Oswego, NY. While it is meant to document the all of races with photos, video clips, and statistics, I often throw a little humor into it, with mixed results (some people love it and some people think that it is an insult to racing. Or something.). We have a ton of fun karting, but I also have fun on the website design, the DVDs and photo captures, the occasionally comedic photo captions, and the kart paintjobs. New racers always welcome, though we mainly just want serious and friendly racers! In addition to karting, other hobbies I have include playing basketball, and working out while watching San Antonio Spurs basketball and New York Jets football, where I've recorded entire seasons of both teams for over a decade now. Attending/watching Supermodified asphalt racing, surfing the web. I have a complete collection of 1984-87 Transformers toys and DVDs, in addition to impressive collections of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, and Star Wars collectibles and action figures. One of my favorite pastimes is collecting and listening to John Williams albums, something I've done since childhood, and often I can be found working on my artwork while listening to his film scores. His film scores lead me into my favorite movies. They are (even in spite of all the bashing), The Star Wars Saga as a whole (in order of liking: The Empire Strikes Back [also my favorite movie of all-time], Revenge of the Sith, Return of the Jedi, The Phantom Menace, A New Hope (yes, most people's favorite is one of my least favorite in the series), and Attack of the Clones) and my favorite fictional character is The Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious from the aforementioned Star Wars saga. Amongst my other favorite movies are several of John Williams' scored movies, including all of his aforementioned Star wars scores and many of his that he scored for Spielberg, led by The Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park series. Other favorite movies of mine  include Braveheart, the Rocky series, Superman and Superman II, The Fury, the darker Batman movies, along with one of my first childhood favorites, The Black Hole. Most of my favorite movies also double as some of my favorite soundtrack albums, most of which are orchestral, which I find more artistically stimulating to my writing than lyrical music, as it allows for more imagination. My favorite composers are (the aforementioned) John Williams, Vince DiCola, Danny Elfman, James Horner, Bill Conti, and John Barry. My favorite band is Fleetwood Mac, and my favorite singer/songwriter is Amy Grant (an eclectic mix, I know). My favorite TV shows are The Sopranos, Homefront, WWF/WWE wrestling, any re-runs of The Three Stooges, and aforementioned Transformers and G.I. Joe cartoons from the mid-1980s. My favorite video games are the Zelda series, The NES Ninja Gaiden series, the NES Double Dragon series, Star Wars games, racing games, and NBA Live and Madden NFL games, amongst assorted other favorites of many genres, though I do not play as many now as I did in my teens and twenties. Last but not least, I'm a Christian, and an amateur Judeo-Christian apologist of sorts, but usually only amongst open-minded acquaintances. Amongst the more close-minded, I would usually request that they listen to some of my favorite Christian apologists' free sermons and radio shows (most notably Dr. Ravi Zacharias), because they are far wiser sages than I am. If listened to on a regular basis, the alleged weaknesses and contradictions of the Bible and Christianity are covered and refuted. In conclusion, it should be noted that although I may disagree with other people's beliefs or lifestyles, I am very tolerant of them, hoping that they would also be tolerant of mine.