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 more or less finishing school, 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, 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 local ska heroes 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, and my current favorite band ever, Sleater-Kinney.

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 since it, well, started to suck last season, it hasn't been watched much of late. Luckily, Buffy still rocks, so our household is safe.

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