First and foremost, I'd like to know your intentions. Maybe you've met me out in the world. I could be a coworker of yours or I could be a consultant for your company. If you're not a good friend or a stranger, this site isn't meant for your eyes. I'll ask you kindly to respect that fact and move on. Still, I know that if I stumbled on your site, I would probably read it and never tell you. I understand what it means to write on the web and I take care that I'm not saying anything that would truly haunt me. Much of what I say is true, much is embellished and there are just a few complete lies. Don't assume too much about anything.
Basically, I'm a the manager of a team of technology consultants and I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. I have a B.S. in Mathematics and Computer Science. I used to be a software developer and I'm proud to say I was really good, but you always get promoted until your in a role you're only mediocre at. I grew up in Sacramento, California. I currently live and work on the peninsula.
People's About pages are some of the best reading on the web. Everyone comes from a fascinating place and we all have stories to tell. Growing up I wrote, I painted and I drew. I knew at a relatively early age that my life wouldn't be one of painting or writing. This site is one of my creative outlets and probably my favorite. I have kept a journal for a very long time, and as it has become fashionable, I put a large portion of the entries not too close to my heart online for others to connect to. My site will tell about my day to day life, but this page will tell you a little more about how I formed. I'm incredibly young, but I'm old enough now that I can look back and see some themes that will probably keep surfacing throughout my life. There are a lot of labels and stereotypes that apply to me, but I fight them. Since no one is really a stereotype, I do my best express myself in ways that counter them.
After I did the first re-write of this page, I realized it came across fairly dysthymic. I have three major layers. The outer layer is happy and easy going. I love spending time with friends and I laugh and smile all the time. Peel back a layer and there is an often lonely person with just a hint of sadness. The somber side doesn't come through readily in person, and I tend to express it more here since there is no instant repercussion for doing so. Peel back that layer and you find the deepest part where I am very happy, very lucky and very content. That's a disclaimer. When you read something wrapped up in sadness, remember, that it's the center of the oreo with genuine happiness on both sides.
I am a computer nerd and a Mac geek. I graduated from college with a double major in mathematics and computer science. I knew from a very young age that I loved working with technology and science. There is something magical about the control I have over things on my computer. I can write applications that fix a problem or I can retouch pictures or scrub noise from sound. I grew up without the internet, but I spent a lot of time on BBSes. I've spent all my years out of school working in technical consulting. I'm very adamant that I am not a engineer and I do not have a degree in engineering. I have always dreamed of going back to school and teaching at the university level, though I'm not sure if it will ever happen or if I would like it if it did.
In high school, I leaned toward posuer gothic, but never enough to count myself one of them. I'm lucky enough to say that I have never really been depressed, even though I have been faced with some truly depressing issues through my life. I have taken anti-anxiety and anti-depressant medication because my parents suggested it, not because I wanted to or a doctor proposed it. I know I have always had a lonely soul. There was a long portion of time in grade school I spent my lunches alone underneath a tree in the yard. I spent many nights in college walking around campus by myself unsure of my life. I make up for this emptiness by orchestrating gatherings and events with my friends. I have been in love a few times and I'm looking forward to a long and passionately loving life with a wonderful woman and a fantastic family, but I expect to always feel a little bit alone.
I have a chronic illness. I absolutely despise being defined by it. I loathe when people tell me I'm looking well, because it only serves as a reminder that times exist where I'm looking sickly. I was hospitalized once during my freshman year of college when I was first diagnosed. It was the only time in my life that I had to put my affairs in order. At age eighteen, it is hard to think you may not reach nineteen. Now I'm healthy and I've been well long enough that I've gone back to thinking I will live forever.
I'm the second of two boys. My parents divorced half-way through growing up. So I have childhood memories of them together and childhood memories of them apart. My brother and I went through the gauntlet of custody battles and child psychologists because we had parents who loved us too much. My father is re-married and I have a bunch of step-siblings that I first met after I had gone to college. I don't know them like childhood siblings, more like college friends, but I adore them and refer to them as siblings without hesitation. It sometimes confuses long time friends when I reference my "little sister" who they have never heard of before.
I'm a generalist, and I have no hobbies that encompass all my free time. I played role playing games throughout my high school and college years, but have spent little time doing so recently. I credit those games with the fact that I never did drugs, never drank underage and never had one-night stands. Those are the types of things that other people did because without role playing games, they were bored and needed something entertaining.
I was raised without religion in my life. I've never been baptized. It's likely I will be at some point in my future. I spent all of high school and all of college in Catholic school by my choice. While you can get away without much religious education if you try, I worked just as hard at religious studies as anything else and had many non-class studies with the priests that taught me. Even though I have a hunger for faith, I doubt my logical mind will ever let me think of God as more than a possibility. I feel a powerful, almost mystical, connection with everyone on Earth and that makes me think there must be something beyond my logic.
That's this page in a nutshell. I hope that gives you a better sense of who I am as you read what I write. There have been two or three people out there I have met through connecting with their web site and I'm waiting for the day I meet someone who connects to mine. I'm good about writing back if you want to write to me. I don't fear random mails. In fact, I love them. Mail me through the Contact Me page.
P.S. I archived the old version of this page. Here is the version from before 02/04/2006.