Here you can find all the useless junk about me that you'd probably rather not know, but I'll tell you about anyway. I'm not one of those super open kind of people who'll tell you anything and everything about me, but this is going to have to be as close as you're going to get for that.

Starting at the beginning...

I was born on 6 August 1978 in Wailuku, Maui, Hawaii. I attended Wailuku Elementary School, Iao Intermediate School, and graduated from Maui High School in June 1996. Since then, I've been stuck in college trying to get some kind of music degree. I attended Indiana University Bloomington for 2 1/2 years, and then I transferred to the University of Hawaii at Manoa. I was originally a Music Education major, but I've since changed that to just a BA in Music. After moving back to Maui, I worked at Title Guaranty Escrow for a couple of years, and while it was very fun and rewarding, the teaching bug that I thought I had lost came back while I was helping the Maui High School Marching Band during the 2006 & 2007 seasons.

Following a very strange twist of fate after the 2007 marching band season at Maui High, a teaching opportunity presented itself at King Kekaulike High School, which I took with some enthusiasm. I have been rehired for the 2008-09 school year, and my hope is to breathe some life back into the band and make them better than they ever have been.

The family...

I'm the youngest child out of 3 brothers. My older brother is self-employed, and installs car audio and security stuff. He does a lot of custom fabrication of stuff and has entered cars in several car shows on Maui and Oahu. I think he does damn good work, and I'm sure that most, if not all of the people he's installed for will also attest to that. My oldest brother is an electrician, and I'm not entirely sure where he's working at right now, but I know for sure that he is working. Both my brothers have kids, so I have three nieces, and they're both very cute. I have a wonderful fiancee that I care about very much, but we don't have kids...and I'm hoping that will stay that way for at least a little while more. There's no date for the wedding just yet, since we have to plan those kinds of things.

My mother is enjoying her retirement after 34 years of teaching. She used to teach AP European History and Geography, and was the Senior Class Advisor at Maui High School until 2001. She's enjoying retirement very much, and spends much of her time relaxing and enjoying her time now.

My interests...

My first and most passionate interest is music. I've been playing the trumpet for the past 19 years, and I thoroughly love it. I personally think that I'm only a mostly decent trumpet player, although it seems most of the people that hear me play think otherwise. Here's my current arsenal of trumpets:

I've been pretty sold on Yamaha horns for the past few years now. I feel their build quality is second to none and the sound is great. The fact that I can get a consistent horn whenever I want is always a plus. The Xeno is a wonderful horn to play, and I'm also looking forward to whatever Bob Malone is developing over there at Yamaha. He's known for making incredible stuff, and I don't think that he's going to stop that now. The new Bobby Shew Z horn is a monster, and the Artist Models are even better. My trumpet playing friends in the Honolulu Symphony are very impressed with it, and you know it has to be good when classical trumpet players say that a trumpet designed for jazz is that good. I'm currently playing on mouthpieces made by Mark Curry for my Bb, C and Eb, and I'm playing a mouthpiece made by Gary Radkte on my piccolo trumpet.

Aside from my musical endeavors, I do some other stuff too. I'm pretty into photography as well. I haven't gone out to take pictures in a while, but when I do decide to go out and take pictures, I take tons of them. I currently shoot with a Nikon N65 SLR, but I'm saving my money up for a digital SLR. I'm looking at the Nikon D200 or the FujiFilm Finepix S5 Pro. They're both plenty expensive, though, so I don't forsee getting one in the near future. I also have a feeling that once I have th cash to spend on these digital bodies, they'll come out with new and better ones.

Since I live in Hawaii, I do my fair share of fishing. I got into ulua fishing last year, and I'm still waiting on my first ulua. Ulua fishing has turned out to be a pretty expensive hobby, but making my own leads and stuff has cut into that cost. My fiancee and I try to go fish as often as we can. My fiancee is into ultralight whipping now, so that's how she occupies her time fishing while I sit there waiting for the ulua bells to go off. I also just started dabbling in custom rod building and I've built two ultralight whipping poles (one for me, one for her), and I'm currently working on a new surf rod for some heavier dunking.

I also play tennis when I have the time. It's something that I always wanted to learn to do, but never got around to learning it until I was 19. Since then, though, I've played pretty frequently. I'm not the greatest, but I do enjoy going out to hit some tennis balls, even if it's just against the backboard. I'm playing a Yonex RDS 001 Mid racquet now, and I really enjoy it. I have it usually strung up with Babolat Conquest 17 at 60#, but I put strings made by Gosen on there every once in a while too. I'm teaching my girlfriend how to play too, and she's making good progress. I know it's just a matter of time before she gets really good.

In conclusion....

Well, this should take care of just about anything that you'd like to know about me. If you'd like to know more, don't bother. I only tell a few people a whole lot about me, and if you're wondering if you're one of them, then you probably aren't. I don't open up to a lot of people, but I can tell you that if you are one of the lucky few, then you're part of a very small group. Anyway, I hope that this has whet your appetite to know more useless junk about me. Now go look around the rest of my site!

Last updated on 24 September 2008
Created by Mitchell S Ota

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