Colin
He's the one getting punched in this picture
Where He's Been Before
It's hard to remember all of the places he's been, but he has been out of the boundaries of the United States on occasion:
- 1997: Spain, France, Germany, Switzerland on student exchange trip with People to People
- 1999: Australia, New Zealand (with LA layover) on another student exchange trip with People to People
- 2004: St. Thomas for Spring Break (layovers in Charlotte, NC and San Juan, Puerto Rico) with Pete, Tony, and HT
- 2007: This trip!
Inside the US, he's lived in Upper Darby, PA (born in Drexel Hill), Edison, NJ, Branchburg, NJ, and Newark, DE.
He's vacationed with his family to DisneyWorld twice. On the first trip, in 1986, which Colin doesn't remember much from, his parents claim he bothered them to see Mickey for the entirety of the trip until finally meeting the famous mouse one of the last days there. The second trip in 1992 was more a trip to Orlando, FA where he made friends with the birds in the decadent hotel lobby by teaching them his name, swam in the awesome grotto pools and down the big slides, and put his head in a fake shark's mouth at Universal Studios. This was, unfortunately, a year or two before the Jaws ride had been created. It would have been nice to enjoy a ride based on what would become one of his favorite films.
His parents will also tell you that he has "pissed himself all over Cape Cod," referring -- of course -- to a vacation during which a young Colin... you guessed it... wet his pants up and down the Cape. He doesn't remember much from this trip, either, apart from smartly avoiding punishment a few times by simply staying in the back of the van and getting lost in some sort of whale museum. There are more stories about Colin wetting himself even when not visitng Cape Cod. If you're interested, contact his parents.
Colin participates in an annual miniature golf tournament with his parents at Long Beach Island on the Jersey shore. He's won once, tied for the lead another time, and "not lost" once. Not a very good record for as many years as they've been doing this. He tends to rally too early and explode around the fourteenth hole, blowing up his one or two stroke lead with a series of sixes. Anger and tantrums in the vein of John McEnroe are not unprecedented. The shore is a special place that Colin really enjoys. He's been there on vacation with his folks a number of times and also rented a shore house with his friends from college during the summer of 2006. That place was pretty sweet.
Other trips have taken him through or to New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Maryland, Virgina, and North Carolina. Shortly after returning to the states, Colin will be traveling to Sunnyvale and San Francisco in California for work. He'll probably squeeze a couple sights in there, too.
What He Does
He's a software engineer for CNET Networks (publishers of such fine sites as CNET, News.com, TV.com, CHOW, Download.com, and more). That basically means that he spends a decent portion of every day programming and writing software in his cube and other parts of the day having meetings and discussing designs for things. It's fun for now while he gets his feet wet, saves some money, and contemplates his next move on the path to world domination. Or maybe world infatuation?
Oh, and he's a 2005 graduate of The University of Delaware. a school he'd recommend to anyone. His degree is in Computer Science. He liked the school so much, in fact, he found a way to get an extra year there while taking graduate courses in Computer Science and Educational Technology. He might go back to grad school, but he's unlikely to do it Delaware just because variety is the spice of life.. and because if he moves any time soon he'd want it to be to somewhere he's never lived before that is awesome and alluring.
There's More?
More information about Colin can be read at http://thosekids.org/colin. There are fancy links there, too.
You can and should email him while he's over there: colin.mccloskey@gmail.com
