About Me
I was born in Santa Rosa, California in 1981. Santa Rosa is about two hours south of my hometown Cazadero (pop. 22) My family moved from there to Phoenix, Arizona and back a couple times before finally settling in Austin, TX in 1992. Although I miss the redwood forests of Cazadero and the sunsets of Phoenix, I haven't found a better place than Austin.
As a young inventor
As a child I was always getting into trouble for taking things apart. I had a strong desire to become an inventor when I grew up, and tinkering with toys, electronics and the occasional major appliance fed my passion.
Though I was always limited to a small budget and things that were already broken (or so I told my parents when I was caught) I did manage to create a few accomplishments with very little means. Over the years I had built hovercrafts, airplanes, helicopters, mopeds and parasails.
When I was 8 my parents bought our first computer, a 486DX100 PC with a 120mb hard drive, 8mb of memory and a restriction from my parents that I was not allowed to touch it without supervision -- I guess the thought I'd take it apart.
As a young programmer
My interest in programming didn't catch on until 4 years later when I found out that DOS came with a programming language - QBasic. I actually had played nibbles and gorillas for years and when I found out the source code was available on virtually every PC at the time I began to take it apart.
With the help of a good friend Eric Schulz, I was well on my way to writing software. He also introduced me to Visual Basic 3.0 which changed my world. I wrote every application I could possibly imagine, my parents would ground me by forcing me to go outside an play.
It was about this time when I discovered the internet as well. Eric was as much of a computer geek as I was becoming. He worked at Dell in the tech support department and was patient enough to answer the millions of questions I asked about everything related to computers. He helped me build my first computer, troubleshoot our in house network of computers, and even set me up with my own homepage.
Our ISDN line on a 10bT network with coax cable running throughout the house was a dream. Downloading source code from every site I possibly could my knowledge began to double each week. And only a couple years later I landed my first job developing for a company in Round Rock - Controlled Decisions, Inc.
My "professional" career
Doing process control software for a subsidiary of Fischer Rosemount before owning a car was a dream. Though I was so young I didn't even realize that my software was controlling oil refineries and rock quarries around the world. And in retrospect it was probably a good thing otherwise I might have been to nervous to write another line of buggy code since my only experience up to then was informal-coding-blind-cross-your-fingers development.
But I had some great coworkers who helped me understand the fundamentals of software development, object oriented code, defensive coding and why I should start using code comments. Over the years I picked up a variety of jobs from PC troubleshooting, Network Administration, Software Development, and a few teenage jobs part time like serving tables and working retail just to remind me how much better my life as a developer actually was.
Fast forward a decade and I'm still here in Austin, TX doing what I love, inventing, but with a resource that is as abundant as my imagination. I'm currently working for myself, as a contractor / consultant. I am working with Neopost Loopone, my former employer, and I have another contract under way.
My life
I'm living with my wonderful fiance Elli Swift, who is dealing with my work-from-home lifestyle very well. My friends and family all live in the area, and I can't imaging living anywhere else. And I've been to most every other state in the US, so it's not just a comfort preference. Though Elli and I do plan on living in another state just for a short period of our life, just to say we did it, but we'll be back.
I still have the same drive for learning as I did in my younger days, I just have to balance that with the responsibilities of being an adult. I research computer technologies virtually every day, and I have a formidable set of bookshelfs that are dedicated to a wealth of computer and business knowledge.
