Lifestyle

I have a sweet tooth. So far I've narrowed down my favorites to things that have either fruit, chocolate, caramel, ice cream, cookies, pudding or sweetened condensed milk in them. Since not too many things fall outside of those specs, I have to be really careful about what I eat and how much. I wish I were one of those people who don't like sweets, but alas, I'm not.

My parents were missionaries and musicians so I grew up in a very musical family. I learned to sing and play a couple of instruments when I was a kid. Today, I can't do much except strum out a 5 chord tune on a guitar or play a kid's song on the piano. I can keep basic beats on the drums and stuff and I play tambourine okay. Despite my lack of skill in playing instruments I still enjoy listening to live music and have a very eclectic taste in music. I am a huge fan of many Brazilian artists and groups like O Rappa, Jota Quest, Skank, Djavan, Caetano Veloso, Legiao Urbana, Jorge Aragao, Falamansa and many, many more. These artists and groups are from such varied musical genres as samba, axé, rock, MPB (música popular brasileira), and forró among others. Obviously I enjoy some American music as well. I'm a big fan of classic rock like Hendrix, Zepplin, Pink Floyd and others. I like some indie rock and heavier stuff like Tool and White Zombie. I listen to some rap and R&B but I draw the line at ganster rap. They just try too hard to sound, well, hard. I don't get into country music at all either... ever.

I used to be an avid clubber and to this day I listen to electronic music loud and often. I like dance music because I can dance like no white boy you've ever seen. I also like some of the crazy sub-categories of electronic music like House, Tribal, Breakbeats, some Drum'n'Bass and some Trance music. It really depends who's playing though, not so much which style. If you are the type of person who thinks it's all the same, you obviously don't know as much about it as you think you do…

Yep, back in the swingin' single days I could show you around Sao Paulo, the 5th largest city in the world, and take you to neighborhoods dedicated entirely to night life with certain clubs being famous for being the best place to go on each night of the week. Nowadays I'm pretty sedate despite my profession. I used to have a lot of fun on the town though. Now I enjoy more family style activities with my wife and son. It's different but just as great. We have a lot of fun together traveling and joining friends for tons of different activities.

I consider myself a pretty modern guy. I dress well and try to keep up with technology. I like the internet and participate in online discussions from time to time.

College was a lot of fun for me but like many others, I never finished. There simply came a time when I had to choose between finishing school and pursueing opportunities that were presenting themselves in the fight world. For a long time I tried to juggle full-time work, school and training but eventually I had to choose, so I chose fighting and it has paid off. While I was in college I studied languages (German) and linguistics. Unfortunately I only completed 2.5 years but I learned a ton and consider myself a fairly educated and enlightened individual. My experiences overseas have helped me fully understand things that I saw during my education that people who finish college still don't understand, especially in fields like sociology, political science, economics and geography. I suck really bad at most high level mathematics though. Go figure…