Who The Heck Is This Professor Cornbread Guy?
An inside look at the dude with the stupid name, and what possessed him to choose it.
Well, finally your search is over, you will now discover the secret of Professor Cornbread, who he is, where he came from, and how he became to be. Professor Cornbread was a name I chose while in 8th grade. As with most great discoveries, it happened out of accident, a fluke, a random occurrence. For part of our 8th grade social studies class we reenacted parts of the American Revolution. We began as colonists, built a society, and revolted from our king. Each of us had a role in the community, and we had to pick a name. Most used their real name, but I wanted to piss off my friend who was leading the 'town hall meeting'. I put several nonsensical names on my name tag. Several included Doctor Breadcrust, Governor Tomato, and Professor Cornbread. Later that year I had to write a piece of music for my band class, and I needed a name to sign it with. Something possessed me to use Professor Cornbread. My instructor thought it was hilarious, most of my peers thought it was stupid. This became the perfect alias, as that was the time where I got into the whole internet thing. I got AOL Instant Messenger, a Geocities web site, and Napster...all of which I used variants of Professor Cornbread as my aliases. Since I am a somewhat lazy person, it would have been too much work to try to make up/keep track of another alias, so Professor Cornbread stuck. That was in 1998, and to this day I still keep it ...I think it is very fitting.
Now about me. As you may be able to tell by my picture, I am an 20 year old guy. Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. I am not particularly unique, I don't have any cool deformations, not some superstar, nothing amazing has happened to me or whatever. I graduated from Verona Area High School on June 8, 2003. I currently live in Madison Wisconsin, and I have my whole life. According to surveys it is one of the better places to live in the United States: plenty of parks, low crime, good education, plenty of stuff to do. The only thing I hate is the cold. Winter sucks it ...especially in the last several years where it gets cold and gray, but won't snow. I don't think it snowed more than 5 inches total in 2002. Other than that it is fine. Madison is the capital and second-largest city in Wisconsin. It has sprawled out over the years to connect with surrounding towns of Sun Prairie, Middleton, Fitchburg and Verona. Most people live in these suburbs and work somewhere between that and downtown. Downtown is a nice place, with many museums, the University, the Monona Terrace Convention Center, and a new Arts District under construction. Not that I am a travel salesman, I just think my city is pretty good. Not good enough to prevent me from moving however, after I finish college I intend to move to California. I hate cold.
One of my hobbies is what you are looking at: my web site. I have had several over time, starting out on free services like Geocities and FortuneCity, but eventually I saw how much they sucked, so on January 1st 2003 I bought professorcornbread.com and signed on a hosting plan with ThreeBoy. In general I would say computers is a hobby, but that has become a more broad and obscure topic, so I will be more specific. I live on the computer and the internet, it is where I get all my information. I program HTML, PHP and JavaScript, as well as design images. I use Macromedia products to build my site, and I highly recommend them for the beginner and the expert. Like many of those of my generation, I became involved with the online music revolution. I got Napster in it's first year, and I witnessed it's climax and it's ruin. I have several thousand mp3s, which can be seen in my mp3 library. If you are one of the people who thinks that it is wrong to get free music, do not preach to be because I do not care. I currently use KaZaA Lite because I am stongly against adware and spyware and all the other problems associated with the regular KaZaA. I have discovered a new generation in music sharing, called Bit Torrent. It is a totally decenteralized form of P2P that provides faster rates and more equal sharing. I used to be casual gamer, but I really don't have the time to do it much anymore. I have dabbled in a wide variety of games, from the Myst Series, to the Sim Games, as well as more mature Diablo and Warcraft genres. I have played many games, and I currently think that Warcraft III the original Diablo, Sim City 3000 and Riven are the best games ever created.
Now onto more traditional hobbies. For me these are Theatre and Music. I am/was a Techie. It is that simple...for those who are familiar with us. Simply, a Techie as someone who works backstage during theatrical productions. They are the people who run the lights, build the sets, make the costumes, move the stuff...they are the people that make the show run. Without Techies a show would not exist. Techies are also immune to the visions of grandeur that plague the actors. We are smarter, more talented, and more appreciative of the end result. For this, I have created Techieland, a place where Techies from all over the world can get together and talk about stuff that has to do with backstage. I myself have been a techie since my first day of high school. On a whim I took a class, called Stagecraft, which introduced me to the art of theatre. I was highly skilled coming in, and I fit in right away. As the years progressed I learned more and more and eventually became the King Techie, or expert Techie. I have worked on more than a dozen shows, doing crew, lights, and stage managing. I intend to make Technical Theatre to be my minor in college. My other main hobby is music. I started to be a musician in 6th grade, when I joined the school band playing the clarinet. 6 years later I still played the clarinet in the top ensemble in my high school. I have also tried singing and compromising, but playing my clarinet still remains my primary interest. I have since put it aside for other things, I hope to keep it up though.
My finally 'hobby' as it is, would be Architecture. It is not really what one would consider a hobby, more of an interest. I am well versed in the styles of famous architects, like Cesar Pelli, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Courbiser, and others. My appreciation does not stop with buildings, I am interested in bridges and landscapes as well. It is hard to say when I wanted to be an architect. My mother claims it is when I was in preschool and would draw nothing but houses, but I think it was later when I was able to fully appreciate design and style.
I am currently a student at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning for my Bachelor of Science in Architectural Design. Later I plan on getting my masters, being and apprentice, and starting my own firm in a big city somewhere, hopefully San Francisco or somewhere where it doesn't snow.
Well that is all I really feel like telling you. If you really want to know more I suppose you could ask me by emailing me...
Enjoy the wealth of information my site has to provide
- Alex Fortney aka Professor Cornbread
