Welcome! (Part II)

Ok, time to introduce myself. My name is Damion Reinhardt, and (except for having a name that is difficult to spell and easy to Google) I am privileged in almost any way you can think of: able-bodied, passably white, male, heterosexual, cisgendered, well-educated, professional. Obviously, that doesn’t make me unique or interesting in any way, and wouldn’t be worth talking about but for the fact that I want you to know that I’ve some idea just how many privileges I’m lugging around in my invisible backpack. This may also come in handy to know later on, for reasons yet to be explained.

I was formally trained in physics and mathematics, but don’t get to use most of those skills as much as I’d like these days. If you want to read about my feeble attempts to model the human head-related transfer function using artificial neural networks, it is available here or here. I managed to drop out of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary after just completing a few courses and before just completely losing my mind, but to this day I cannot seem to get my name off their mailing list. I will try to incorporate more than a bit of maths into my posts here, but don’t be surprised if the subject drifts into even more interesting topics, such as theology, epistemology, and ethics.

I’m a proud father of three, worshipful husband of one, practicing monogamist (just love the practicing) and spend pretty much all my spare time trying to raise the sorts of kids who will grow up to impress the kick-ass counselors at Camp Quest Oklahoma with their curiosity, perspicacity and perspicuity.

Which reminds me, I’d better get my atheist/skeptical bona fides out on the table. As I alluded to yesterday, I’ve been helping to organize the Oklahoma Atheists (AOK) in some capacity for over ten years now, ever since we moved back to OKC in 2001. I’ve been known to blog for the AOK blog, podcast with the AOK podcast, and produce videos for the AOK YouTube Channel. I’d like to emphasize here that each of those endeavors is a team effort, and that my goal has always been helping to get other people’s ideas and voices heard.

Speaking of a healthy variety of ideas and voices, I must say how stoked I am to be joining the Skeptic Ink Network. I have tremendous admiration for what Ed and John are trying to create here, and look very much forward to furthering to the group’s mission in any way that I can.

That’s it for now. Tomorrow, the obligatory rules post.