Personal Information

What can I say about my interests outside of my work?

• I spend time with my wife. We enjoy old movies, Italian food and talking about our semester in Rome through the University of Dallas study abroad program. We also spend time with our three daughters.
  

• I was born and raised in East Texas. I retain many phonological and morphosyntactic features of the East Texas dialect.

• • Here is my "feel/fill" merger (/fɪl/). I have to make a conscious effort to pronounce /mil/:
    
    

 

• • Here is my monophthongization of /ɑɪ/. Quite natural for me but much easier for me to change to standard diphthongs than to distinguish "feel/fill." Here is rice and bike.
    

 

• • I took some ribbing while living in Indiana for how I pronounce lawyer /lɑjər/.
    
    

 

• • I often use fixing to for about to (but this is not endemic to Texas).

 

• I enjoy playing basketball when I have the chance. I also referee youth basketball games.

        

 

• I am a member of St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church in Kennesaw.