As access to the World Wide Web grows at an exponential rate, there are those who will grow along with it. But can we truly express our “individuality” in a virtual world? Enter Gerard Reyes, a self-entrepreneur of the young Internet generation. Gerard’s site is a dose of exciting and detailed personal expression. By showing how he has so much ahead of him, his site as a great way to show how much he has already accomplished. Come with A-Profiler as we go, well, deeper, “Inside Gerard’s Head”

Name: Gerard C. Reyes

Nickname(s) / Web Name: Joe Manio

Age: 21

Date of birth: August 19, 1978

Education: CalPoly, SLO & Academy of Art SF

Asian decent? Which Generation? Filipino. Zero Generation. Born in the PI

Languages Spoken / Fluency level? I can totally understand Tagalog and Visayan

Occupation / Career: Student, Computer Multimedia Artist

Why I do what I do: I'll get paid alotta for being my creative self.

Current Project(s): Finish school. my own domain and freeq.org

Next Project(s) / Goal(s): redesigning icestorm.com. work for a video game company!

My Site URL(s): www.gerard-reyes.com, www.freeq.org

Purpose / Mission Statement of your site: to put out as much quality content and graphic design as i can about myself. freeq.org: a site to profile my own personal websites that i look at frequently.

People should visit my site if: they like reading, seeing or hearing about me or my life.

First time on the Internet: 1992 Current average time spent on-line: too many hours! prolly about 18 hours connected, 8-10 in front of the computer

Top 10 Favorite Sites: (in no particular order) – www.bluesnews.com - willsantos.cjb.net - Will Santos - www.infinitefish.com - www.phong.com - www.nrg.be - www.rustedfaith.com - members.tripod.com/j2d/journal.html - Joe - members.xoom.com/imaginable - Cheryll - www.planetquake.com - www.okayplayer.com

Western Horoscope Sign: Leo

Asian Horoscope: Horse, i think

I’m most like my sign in that: i'm very generous and loving

I’m most unlike my sign in that: i try not to come off as arrogant or conceited

Left Brained or Right? right in the middle

Name three shows you currently like watching on a regular basis everyday or every week? Frasier- umm NFL Football!- Friends

What were three of your favorite shows growing up? Transformers- MacGuyver- Three's Company

Name three songs that make you happy every time they're played on the radio?- "Best of My Love" by The Emotions- "Canned Heat" by Jamiroquai- "Tell Me Somethin Good" by Rufus and Chaka Khan (i think that's the namehaha)

What are three of your favorite magazines to read?- PC Gamer- Maxim- 2600

What’s the last three musical Album/CD/Tape you bought?- The Best of Bond- Fight Club Score- The Roots: The Roots Come Alive Three Artist’s whose work you enjoy or recognize:- Andy Warhol- Mucha- Todd McFarlane

Three of your favorite Food Preferences:- Filipino- Italian- Korean

Three of your favorite authors:- Roald Dahl- Mark Twain- Emily Dickinson

Three of your favorite places to travel:- Boston- New Jersey- Las Vegas

Religious / Agnostic / Atheist? extremely left/liberal Roman Catholic

Are you Patriotic? I love the Bay Area!

Democrat / Republican / Other? Democratic

Do you have a healthy lifestyle? I eat too much fast food. I still dance and run a lot, tho!

How would you know if you were headed toward burning out? What do you do to relax? When i'm losing sleep, i'm burning out. NAPS totally help.

Do you argue constructively? only if the other side does!

From what perspective do you usually find yourself forming a take on the world? Or, how do you normally categorize yourself in society? a computer smart, creative, knowledgeable young male

Your strengths (physically / mentally): i've got speed and balance/ i'm a quick thinker.

Your weaknesses (physically / mentally): i'm not that strong / I get tooo infatuated when it comes to relationships sometimes

How ‘life-smart’ do you consider yourself to be? (life-smart: living with certain values and concepts) The Golden Rule rules all.

How smart do you consider yourself to be? i try to be very knowledgeable about EVERYTHING

How do you react to stress? Coping strategies? I try to calm down and slow down. I learned that if i stress out too much, I stop functioning physically and correctly.

What do you do to get your message across? I make my voice seem more bold. haha. Or I try to explain it in a way that anyone can understand.

How would you describe yourself? i'm a generous, out-going,all-around"nice guy"

Do you become jealous easily? yeah =(

Are you a born salesperson? i think so

Do you believe in yourself? YES!

Do you have any Phobias? i'm scared of the dark

When I see a woman, the first thing I notice is: her smile

When I see a man, the first thing I notice is: his girlfriend

If I were a tree, I’d be a: Redwood

You find a genie, your Three wishes are (no wishing for more wishes):

• i wish i could pay off all my bills
• i wish i finished school already
• i wish to fall in love with someone that loves me more than i love them

Star Wars Character I most identify with: the young Obi-Wan Kenobi

What was the last movie you enjoyed watching? Fight Club

Favorite Drink: Sprite

Favorite Colors: dark blue-violet and a red red-orange. hey, that's what my art teachers tell me

I’d like my epitaph to read: We All Love You Gerard.

Pets? I love dogs

Idiosyncrasies / Habits? i laugh real loud sometimes. i clap a lot, too. i make beats by beat-boxing or pounding on tables.

Some of my Talents or Hobbies are: computer games (hahaha), piano, drums, clarinet, singing, acting and dancing

Relationship status: TIRED of looking

What was it like growing up of Asian descent? Daly City was always a mix of different races. i really didn't notice WHEN it became so full of filipinos. i guess my race wasn't really an issue. However, being raised as an only child filipino boy was tough. i was supposed to be some sort of doctor or engineer, and get straight A's, and be 120% Roman Catholic and be a good boy and everything. yikes.

Do you have any Role Models / Influences? my mom. she's taught me everything good. my dad. he's taught me about real life. my cousin Anthony. a brother that i've never had.

Does your race signify an essential part of your self-image? No, not essentially. Though my culture is very important to me, I feel that i'm a single, unique individual.

What prompted you to put up the site “Inside your head?” here's the background to a really simple question. hehe. i actually got into webpage creation back in 1996. i was even so naive to enter peoples' names as domains. e.g. www.kristin.com. but yeah, as a computer science major, I couldn't take the computer app class. it was a friend of mine that was a non-comp. sci major that got me into creating a webpage cuz of the comp. apps class he took. i used MS WORD to make my first page. hahaha. anyhow, I started doing the daily update thing because i wanted to give my friends back here in SF a way to see what was up -- i was taking a summer quarter...they weren't. i was doing that page for a long while until i finally decided that it was worth it to buy a domain.

Your site shows that you are technically proficient in a number of things, where do you think technology will bring yourself (personally) in this New Year? Ten Years from now? technology is ALWAYS changing. i think the only technology i need this year is a better digital camera and maaaaybe a video capture card. i just want to prepare for multimedia freelance jobs and stuff. looking into the future, I figure this computer i got is always gonna be upgraded. i'm gonna have to relearn old apps and learn new apps as they come out. new devices and such will prolly make work easier for everyone in my field, too.

Is there anything you feel technology doesn’t help you in? Or, what are some of the drawbacks to technology that you dislike? technology is expensive. it can make people lazy. the technology have's vs. the have not's is a problem, too. the accessibility and user-friendliness of some technology is also prone to bad products and/or designs. 90% or some real high percentage of the 'net is bad design.

Who do you credit as influences on your journal? for one, definitely my english teachers. i feel that they helped me find my writing style. my family and friends also influence me as well. i learn a lot from them and much of what i say is simply putting into words what we all experience. lastly, the freex and other pages that i frequent always influence me. i mean, don't we all take from each other anyhow? i try to give back of course. hehe.

Do you ever worry about overexposure or spending too much of your time on the internet? i don't, but my fam and friends do. hahaha. as far as "overexposure," man, I think we ALL love exposure. and i'm a leo. we like, BASK in this kinda stuff. hahaha. oh yeah, i always argue that i'm 50% in front of the computer online and 50% out of the house anyhow.

What activities would you indulge in if you were unable to continue your current course of study or occupation? i love my computer and all, but my first true love was music. i'd have to go into the music field somehow. some friends and i have always said that if we all flunked outta college, we'd start up a band. like those ones that play at our older generations' organization dinner and dance thingies. If not even that, i'd have to try my hand at being a writer.

If you could vacation anywhere in the world to live, where would it be and why? If you could live permanently anywhere in the world, where would that be and why? i'd wanna go to some Scandinavian country. only because it'd be so different over there -- for an asian even. i mean, you got their old school culture, great landscape/environment and then you got their technology. some of the coolest design groups and webpages are over there. i'd also like to go to Japan. from what i see in those japanese soap operas (that i'm voluntarily watching now), it looks to be really clean and technologically advanced over there, too. oh yeah, watching anime makes me wanna go there, too. ahhaha. now if i could live permanently anywhere in the world... it'd prolly have to be somewhere in Silicon Valley. for career and family reasons, i guess. I did give a thought to going back home to my province in the Philippines, but i'd need all my computers and stuff hahaa.