Hi,

My full name is Joseph Scott Powell. I've been lurking in the group
for about a month. It looks like I can learn a lot from the members
of this group, and hopefully I can contribute back in kind.

I am 40 years old, and work as a Software Engineer in Southern
California. I enjoy my work overall, though my current job is less
challenging than I prefer.

I live in Huntington Beach, and have lived in Southern California
(Orange County) since 1995. I grew up in Georgia, and have lived
several other places in the US, including Oklahoma, Indiana and Colorado.

I have a photo and a small amount of information about me on my Yahoo
profile:
http://profiles.yahoo.com/joepowell0

There are a few more photos at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/JoePowell0/PicturesOfMe

I'm 6' 2" and weigh 190lbs for a BMI of 24.4. My body fat is around
18-19% according to my bathroom scale (bioelectric impedence), though
I'm not sure how accurate this is. My weight is higher than I want it
to be (near my lifetime peak of 196 lbs), so I intend to gradually
lose 15 to 20 lbs over the next year or two. I've lost about 5 lbs in
the past 6 months, which is roughly the rate of loss I'd like to keep
up. If my scale is reasonably accurate, this 5 lbs of loss has been
entirely fat, which is something I want to maintain as well.

My overall health is good, and has been for all my life. My blood
pressure was measured during a recent physical at 130/84 and my
resting heart rate at 72. My biggest current health complaint is mild
psoriasis, which has started to affect my joints the last 5 years or so.

Probably my greatest challenge for increasing my life happiness is
balancing my introversion with my enjoyment of a great variety of
activities. I manage this fairly well at this point in my life, and
I'm now looking at what I can do to extend the length of my life. I
would love to hear suggestions for this.

I have a sedentary job, but I'm active outside of this. During winter
I do a lot of downhill skiing, and during summer lots of mountain
biking, hiking, and other outdoors type sports. I do cardio workouts
in the gym to keep in shape for other activities I like, but not as
consistently as I would prefer. In particular, in Winter I don't get
as much exercise as I want from sports so I try to make up for it in
the gym.

Of course there's a lot more I could say, but this is a start. Feel
free to ask me anything.

regards,

Joe