This is a picture of me. I'm not quite sure what I am doing, but there is fire involved. Anyway, my name is Peter D Bakija (which you may or may not already know) and I live in Ithaca, NY. I finally got around to finishing school (I'm a master, of, umm, something!), and I am currently teaching art (like photography, sculpture, and printmaking) to high school students in upstate NY.

I'd like to think I'm a fairly competent artist, spending a good deal of time making weird big things (like the giant puppets elsewhere on this site), as well as drawing and printmaking.

I spend a good deal of my leisure time as a gaming geek--I play lots of different strategy and card games, including Star Fleet Battles, Titan, Vampire: The Eternal Struggle, Poker (I'm so convinced I should become a pro Poker player after watching lots of World Series of Poker on ESPN of late), and Bridge (I don't really like Bridge all that much--I usually describe it as "difficult, yet boring!", but my friends keep making me play, so I'm getting better at it). If you are also a gaming geek, you will probably recognize the games I mentioned. If not, just think of them like Risk (y'all remember Risk, right?), but to the Nth degree.

When I'm not teaching, making big puppets or gaming, I watch lots of TV and films (In terms of TV, I'm a big fan of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Farscape, and Babylon 5. Yup. I'm a geek, alright.) My film tastes revolve around Kurosawa, Kubrick, and anything by Wes Anderson. I always listen to tons of music--my current musical tastes have been running a lot towards goofy ska (like the Aquabats! and the sadly seeming to be MIA locals, The Blackouts) and old school Punk rock, by the likes of The Ramones, X, The Stooges, and The Clash, while always being a big fan of post punk Chick rock, such as Liz Phair, The Breeders, The Donnas, and my current favorite band ever, Sleater-Kinney. Always wanting to support the local rock scene, I can't say enough good stuff about the excellence that is the local, kinda rockabilly punk outfit, Rocko Dorsey and the Individuals, so if you have the opportunity to see them, do so.

Now this here is Caitlin. At some point in time, she decided it would be a good idea to marry me. We've been together for a very long time--we met in college at a square dance.

She makes these really cool Goth Sock Dolls, and is a fan of Historical Fiction and used to be a big fan of The X-Files, but then it crashed and burned in the last two or three seasons. We are bitter. Now Buffy is over (which, thankfully, didn't crash and burn, although I still hate them for killing Tara...) we are kind of lost, TV wise. We still have hopes for the upcoming season of Angel, but it clearly isn't long for life.

My brother Jon is a economics professor at Williams College in MA. He has a web page too!