General
Name:	Christopher James Palermo
Age:
Occupation:	Technology Manager at Accenture in their Communications and High Tech Practice
Siblings:	2 brothers- Mike (2 years older) & Doug (2 years younger)
High School:	Hopatcong High School '94
College:	Cornell University '98
Major:	Mechanical Engineering w/ concentration in Fluids & Aerospace
Car:	Subaru Impreza 2.5 RS MY00
Handedness:	Lefty
Interests:	Working out, nutrition, sports, computers, digital imaging, digital video, car audio, music
Favorites
Movies:	Chasing Amy, Can't Buy Me Love, Hoosiers, Happy Gilmore
Music:	Alkaline Trio, Journey, Styx, Blink 182, Catch 22, anything ska
Baseball Team:	New York Yankees
Football Team:	New York Giants
Basketball Team:	New York Knicks (haven't cared since Ewing left)
Soccer Team:	New York/New Jersey Metrostars
Hockey Team:	yeah...
Green Vegetable:	Peas
Season:	Spring
Websites:	fark.com, theonion.com, imdb.com, yahoo.com, ilovebacon.com, livejournal.com njbrigade.com
Short Bio
I was born and raised in Hopatcong, a rolling-hilled suburban New Jersey town on the outskirts of Lake Hopatcong, the largest lake in New Jersey. I spent most of my youth playing outside with my brothers, friends and neighbors. We played a lot of wiffle ball during the spring and summer and a lot of football during the fall and winter. I guess I had a pretty normal youth. Went to school, played with my friends, hadn't a care in the world. I definitely kept busy in high school doing just about everything. I graduated first in my class of 174 and did not miss a single day of school for all four years. (Of course once I got to college I nearly died of double pneumonia after barely two months!) But anyway, here's some of the things that kept me busy during my high school years. Chess Team I help lead Hopatcong to two championship titles, losing only once in tournament play during my four years of high school (and I still kick myself over that game!). I was co-captain senior year with my buddy Matt. Academic Bowl Probably my favorite extra-curricular activity. I love trivia and despite being a small school, we had a strong team year after year. I was on the team my junior and senior years, being captain my senior year. We won some tournaments over the years as well as some prize money. My forte was primarily history and current events/entertainment. It was also cool being part of the Palermo dynasty since Mike was captain before me and Doug was captain after me. Science League People always used to make fun of us for getting on a bus, driving to some other school, taking a test, and coming back. But we had a good time. I was on the Biology team freshman year, Chemistry team sophomore year, Physics team junior year, and Chemistry II team senior year. We always held our own and senior year, we ended up finishing in first place for all of north Jersey. Or something like that. There's a plaque in the office with our names on it. Newspaper I contributed articles all four years and was editor my senior year. We turned out a pretty decent paper. I just liked being able to write whatever I wanted and then getting to sell it. Trust me, it was the best dime you ever spent. Student Council Ended up being home room rep all four years because the teachers always liked picking me since no one else would do it. Senior year, at the suggestion of Mikey, I ran for Student Council President. The last thing I ran for was in third grade when I represented Walter Mondale in our class election and loss badly. Anyway, I decided to run in the three-person race. I had a low-key campaign and hoped to run solely on the recognition of my name. As luck would have it, I won handily and got to serve as president my senior year, running the meetings, going to tricky-trays, helping out senior citizens, and so on and so on. Intramural Sports I love sports and I love the thrill of competition. That's why I was heavily active with intramural sports, captaining the flag-football team and volley ball team all four years. I also played in the 3-man volleyball tournaments and 3-man basketball tournaments each year. They may not have been varisty sports, but we took them very seriously. Especially flag-football. It was flag in name only. It was rough. Senior year I was on defense, chasing after a receiver who had just caught the ball. My only option was to dive at him, so I did and ended up breaking my left ring-finger in the process. Of course I didn't know it was broken till afterwards. I continued to play the game, unable to move or bend my finger. I even caught a pass after the finger was broken. That's was it was all about. Unfortunately that injury marked the end of my flag-football career. Golf I played for three years, seeing two years of varsity action at usually the fifth spot. I qualified for the 18-hole SCIL tournament my Junior year. Unfortunately we didn't win a single match while I played. At least we got some free golf. I was teamed a few times with a rather shady guy named Joe Cooper who used to smoke during the matches, carefully laying his cigarette down on the grass when it was time to tee off. Then one day we were all in our little bus getting ready to leave for the match when Coach Raz (Rasmussen), asked, "Where's Joe?" To which someone replied, "He's in jail." Joe never came back. You just have to laugh. I think the golf team ended up losing something like 120 matches in a row, spanning like six years. If anybody cared about the golf team, that might have been a more publicized figure. Luckily, no one cared about us at all. Tennis I played on the first Hopatcong varsity team during my senior year. Check my in-depth look back at my tennis career. After high school, I headed to central New York. Ithaca. Cornell University. I did a lot of studying and I learned a lot about engineering, a lot about life, a lot about myself. I was too busy with the Mechanical Engineering course load to continue with all my extracurricular activities. I made it a point to keep doing flag football and I also was a member of the Cornell Concert Commission. I got to be security at all the concerts. The best was when Adam Sandler came and I got to guard the stage, right in front of him. It was cool. But classes were nuts. I took four semesters of Physics, four semesters of calculus, heat transfer, fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, and on and on. The few non-engineering classes I took were micro and macro economics, sociology, Religions of the World, History of Rock and Roll (our quizes were name that tune!), and a few writing classes. I made it even more difficult on myself by spending twenty-hours a week at my job. I was an administrative assistant to Frank H.T. Rhodes, the President Emeritus of Cornell. Don't be fooled by the fancy title... I opened his mail, sorted his mail, fetched his paper, did some filing and xeroxing, answered the phones, helped do some research for his book, taught him how to use the internet... I was a jack of all trades. It definitely took away from my studying, but it was a wonderful time. That was an incredible experience working for Dr. Rhodes, who not only was a former president of Cornell, but also served as an education advisor under President Bush and was a former president of the Nastional Science Foundation. A truly remarkable man. After graduation, I moved back home to Hopatcong and began work for Andersen Consulting, who have since changed their name to Accenture (NYSE: ACN). In 1998, anyone who wanted a job working with computers could have gotten one thanks to the massive boom of the internet. Since I decided I wasn't too keen on being a MechE my whole life, I went the consulting route instead. So there I was, settling back into the same bedroom I grew up in (with my poster collection of late 80's baseball sluggers- Bo Jackson, Will Clark, Kirby Puckett, etc.) I was in and out of a couple relationships when I decided to give internet dating a shot. Had a few misfires upfront (most notably, the infamous 'Gums'), until I finally found someone. I was working at the AT&T in Middletown, NJ when we started emailing each other. I had originally found her on webpersonals.com, which has since transitioned to lavalife.com. I plugged in my search criteria, hit enter, and the rest is history... We emailed each other constantly. And not just little bitty 'how are you' emails; I'm talking page after page after page of our life history emails. After three weeks, I knew she was 'the one'. We met at the Chester Diner one Friday night, talked for about three hours and that was enough to seal the deal for me. We got engaged on Easter Sunday a year later (had the ring inside an egg- apologies to Doug for giving me the idea). We were married on June 20, 2003 in what was a truly unforgettable day. So that's where I am now, just entering chapter 2 of the saga that is my life. There's a ton I want to do in the next few years (like finally finish the novel I started writing way back in October 2000) but most importantly, I wan't to be with Jen and watch out love grow stronger by the day. So what's in store for the next five, ten, twenty years? I don't know. All I can pray is that I'll have my health, happiness, and that I'll be continually be surrounded by friends and family. Because without them there is no way I would be where I am today. Thank you all...