Hi, Everybody!

I have been graciously invited by our fearless leader, Brandon, to write for APC, and I am beyond excited! Hopefully I won't do to this blog what Doctor Nick Riviera does to his patients. I appreciate the opportunity to help inform you about the greatest football team on the planet, and I hope you'll enjoy my contributions along the way.

I will now be posting content to the front page, and I do have some ideas in store. Expect regular posts with links and brief commentary, as well as a series of analyses of potential Packers draft picks when the draft gets closer.

If you care who I am, please follow the jump. If you just plain don't give a crap (and I wouldn't blame you one bit), don't bother. I'll sum myself up in one sentence: I love the game of football and I love the Green Bay Packers.

If you're reading this, there are two possibilities: you are either curious about me or you are looking for something to help put you to sleep. Well, here we go.

Those of you who've read some of my weekly previews this season may remember that I am a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I will be graduating this summer with a Master's Degree in Health Physics. Don't worry, even I don't know what it means half the time. To clarify a bit, my goal is to have a job in the nuclear power industry as a radiation safety analyst by the time the NFL kicks off the 2010 season.

Since my career path has nothing to to with writing or football, I'll discuss my lifelong love of our great team instead. Growing up in Milwaukee in the early 90's, I can vaguely remember Don Majkowski. I was raised as a Brewers fan first and foremost, living fifteen minutes away from County Stadium. In fact, one of my first clear memories was sitting down the third-base line in September of 1992 when Robin Yount lined a single off of Jose Mesa of the Indians for his 3,000th career hit. However, it was the same month that my focus became glued on the green and gold, as a young, spunky quarterback began taking the snaps for the Packers.

Strangely, I was one of a minority of kids in my grade school who were actually Packers fans. We had several Cowboys fans--no doubt bandwagon jumpers in the early and mid-90's--and a number of fans of other teams. I therefore began talking smack and having football arguments early in my life. Madden 97 was a turning point for me, as it was the first sports video game I owned, and it opened my eyes somewhat to the complexity and intelligence that is involved in this sport. At 9 years old, football to me meant "run down the field, throw the ball, and hit people." Seeing the variety of plays and defenses that were run at that age has led me to attempt to take a more cerebral approach to the game.

I met Mitchell, one of your other "beloved" authors, on our first day of high school, and we became fast friends. Football was always one of the main bonding rituals among our friends. I started a 4-person fantasy league our sophomore year, when we passed around our draft sheet during geometry class, and I have run a league consisting of several of our close friends ever since.

My freshman year of college exposed me to the glory that is college sports in the best (in my humble opinion) college town in the country. I have quite literally spent as much time and effort on the Badger football and hockey teams as I have on my coursework over the last four and a half years, attending 36 football games and 105 hockey games over that time. One quick look at my profile picture should explain what kind of Badger fan I am. But at the same time, I have remained a staunch Packers fan. If anything, I have further honed my debate and trash talking skills after living and hanging out with Vikings and Bears fans who attend UW.

I'm sure that's probably far more than you ever cared to know about me, so I will reiterate my summary from earlier: I love the game of football and I love the Packers. I am honored to be given the opportunity to write for this community of intelligent, knowledgeable, and passionate fans, and I hope that you will find my contributions to be funny, interesting, and worthwhile.

GO PACK GO!