Ben Murrell

What does one put on an about me page? There’s so much – what do I choose? I’ll start broad.

My name is Ben Murrell. I was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. I’m actually from the suburbs of Kansas City – Lee’s Summit in particular. I went to college at the University of Missouri – Rolla (now known as Missouri S&T) and I just graduated in May 2009. I studied Computer Science, but I’m far from the Computer Science stereotype.

I started this blog after I spent a considerable amount of time setting up WordPress installations for the Missouri S&T ACM chapter and its AI group – I started the AI group and I served as President(08-09) and Vice President (07-08) of the ACM chapter. Initially, I complained about Seagate’s 1.5tb drive (which is now the #2 reason people arrive at this site from Google!). Then, whenever something interested me that I wanted to talk about but had no outlet for, I’d post it here. Well, after I graduated I decided I’d go to Europe. I used the site to keep everyone back home more or less updated on where I was and what I was up to while I was overseas. Now, I’m transcribing journal entries from the trip to the blog – once I’m done with that, who knows what I’ll post?

Anyways, more about me! I’m tall. I like meeting new people, I like traveling, I like learning new things in general, but I like learning languages in particular. I run. My favorite author is Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but my favorite period of literature is the Romantic period. I like most music, but when I’m alone I usually listen to bands like Say Anything, Something Corporate, All Time Low, and Flogging Molly. I don’t watch movies very often (they suck up a lot of time!), but when I do, I like movies like 300, Children of Men, and Donnie Darko. I tend to forget the movies that I like, but these are the three I remember. I ride a Kawasaki Ninja. My favorite season used to be Winter, but more and more I’m liking Summer. I used to hate being sweaty, but ever since I started running a lot, I embraced the feeling and stopped letting it bother me – that’s probably why I like Summer more now.

I don’t have a bucket list, but I do have things I want to do and places I want to go. I’d rather not do things on a list – I’d rather just be the person that does the things that would be on a list. Which means I do do the things that would be on the list, but it’s less scripted that way… and that’s the way I like it.

I haven’t really thought of long term goals for a while. Or my dreams/hopes/aspirations. My trip to Europe was an eye opener – I at least know now that I have a goal of seeing the world. I think I’d like to be able to play guitar. I want to improve my foreign language skills. Beyond that… I don’t know.