I'm about as eclectic as they come. I'm an ultra-liberal hippie co-oper from Houston majoring in philosophy who likes loud music, break dancing and riding bikes off tall things; and on top of that I'm a huge computer geek. I enjoy activities with a significant risk of serious injury, because it's no fun if there's no danger involved.

When I signed up for Texas 4000, I wasn't terribly motivated. I thought, "Hey, this sounds like an awesome adventure!" with the side benefit being I get to help a charity. A few months later, my mother was diagnosed with the early stages of breast cancer. She is currently undergoing treatment and her prognosis is excellent because it was caught so early. But it made me realize the importance of the work groups like the American Cancer Society do. I realized what could have happened if the information that helped my mother recognize her risk was not available. People will continue to get cancer; there's not much we can do about that. What we can do is help them recognize the risk factors and inform people of their options, as there is a direct and obvious correlation between early detection and treatment for most types of cancer. Nobody's claiming that we can cure cancer (yet,) but we can improve the survivability.