Insert Brief Biographical Sketch Here

So, who the hell am I, anyway? I guess you could say I'm a lot of things. I expected this to be an easy entry - how hard is it to just run through a few adjectives and basic historical data? A lot harder than it sounded. I could probably mention that I live in New York City and work on Wall Street, but that could change anytime soon. (There will be plenty of posting about a certain stock exchange, I guarantee.) I'd have to mention somewhere that I went to Cornell University and graduated in 2000. I learned a lot when I was there, but little of that had anything to do with classes.

So, basically, all you know so far is that I am virtually indistinguishable from about 50,000 other New Yorkers. What else? Hmm, OK. I play a mean guitar. I always am in the middle of reading 5 books at once. I drink bourbon whiskey, on the rocks. I love to cook, but hate to clean up afterwards. I can run a sub-7 minute mile.

It's pretty difficult to sum up nearly 27 years of experience and personality into a blog post; you'll just have to see what you can glean about me over time. I will, however, enlighten you about the name of the blog - So Derivative. My current job, (I'd call it an occupation, but it barely occupies my time when I'm at work,) is formally titled Equity Options Trader. I work on the trading floor of the American Stock Exchange, where I yell and wave my arms and participate in the chaos that is sheer unbridled capitalism. Ostensibly. In reality, I play a lot of solitaire, do the crossword puzzle, eat my free lunch, and surf the net. A lot. A few years ago things really were frantic and exciting, but a lot has changed since then. I don't know how much longer I'm going to stay down there, but for the time being I am, technically, a derivatives trader.