Y'know, writing this "About Me" page has been the hardest part of this whole webpage process.

It'd probably be a lot easier if I was really full of myself (you'd think I was, considering all the pictures of me all over the place, huh?) but, alas, I'm a humble guy, in a humble home, in the middle of the wondrous beauty that is Southeast Alaska.

My name is Mike Gates, I'm 42 years old, and I live in Ketchikan, Alaska. I'm a single dad to two gorgeous little girls: Taylor, who is 9, and Lauren, who's 7. That's me, up in the picture of the glasses above this text. Not the best picture--I'm making a face, and the picture gives me more chins than a Chinese phonebook, but that's pretty much what I look like.

I'm an entertaining sorta guy, with a frequently self-deprecating sense of humor and a tendency towards using two-dollar words like "self-deprecating". I chuckle too much, and find myself pretty amusing, even when others don't--in other words, if I say something I think is funny, I'm usually still chortling about it even when everyone else has already moved on to something else. I know it drives my coworkers nuts. Oh, I sell cars for a living. Please don't spread that around.

Hmmm... I love music. I listen to just about every kind of music, though I lean towards heavier 70's and 80's rock and metal. I have thousands of old vinyl LP's, a bunch of CD's and a growing collection of MP3 files of every type of music, though, from country, jazz, show tunes, techno, and wierd humor, to classical. I'm not crazy about rap or hip-hop, but you'll find even some of that on my shelves. I also have a guitar, which I play badly. I have the likely mistkaken feeling though, that I might accidentally get better at it if I keep fooling with it. I have a friend who insists that I'm a guitar player. He's getting a band together and thinks I'm going to be the guitar player. So far, I'm going along with it, but I think he's mistaken.

I sing in the shower. Not whole songs--just the parts I remember. Frequently, over and over. No wonder I bathe alone.

I read a lot. My reading habits are as bad as my music habits. I'm as likely to have my nose buried in a science fiction book as I am to have it in a mystery or horror novel, or a book of philosophy or Japanese short stories (translated--no, I don't read Japanese). I'd like to write someday, when I grow up. If I grow up.

I started acting last summer. Since then, I've been in three plays. The first was a part in David Ives' "All In The Timing", followed by a bit part in "The Music Man". I recently finished up as the emperor in Blanche Martin's "The Emperor's New Clothes." My kids think I'm a star. :o)

I do crossword puzzles in ink.

I like to fiddle with computer stuff, like graphics programs and web page utilities. Someday, I may make a living at it. Like my guitar work, I'm not very good, but I'm improving. I made all the graphics for *this* site, didn't I? I am endlessly amused by finding strange sites on the net, and I chat a little on ICQ (my ICQ number is 851767).

I brew a pretty mean beer. I also cook a pretty mean homemade pizza. In fact, I cook a lot. My roommates are getting fat. They love my cooking, but I'm sure they curse me under their breath when they get a good look at their profile.

Mostly, I like to do stuff with my girls. We go camping and rollerskating, we do art projects and we dance. We cook together, we read together, and we play games. We have lots of sleepovers. We watch movies and we make up silly words to popular songs. We make prank phone calls. Okay, we *don't* make prank phone calls, but it *sounds* like a fun family project, doesn't it?