SP Me

I am a graduate of Ohio University with a bachelor of science in Computer Science with non-core classes in databases, programming languages and syntax, internetworking (as taught by a professor whose PhD work was done under Douglas Comer), and artificial intelligence. In addition to my required computer science and math classes, I pursued a curriculum heavy in history and philosophy with additional classes in German and linguistics. On the side, in an effort to get out of the university’s Sun labs, I was a member of the Ohio University fencing team where I also helped train new fighters.

On a professional level, I worked with the Voinovich Center at Ohio University as the lead network analyst and assistant network administrator where I helped create their IT department, advised on and helped plan their software development projects while I was enrolled as a student. After graduation, I continued the consulting and contracting work that I began during my final year at Ohio University while looking for a full time position with a company.

The aforementioned consulting projects have included, but have by no means been limited to, several DBA projects and work on a program which Sun Microsystems expressed interest in acquiring a license to for use with its operating system upon said program’s completion (unfortunately the last of these items has been scraped).

In October 2005, while wandering around a Linux convention (partially in order to get out of the house and learn new things and partially in order to network), I met many companies that expressed an interest in me. I ended up being offered the position of Executive Editor for a new open source magazine called o3 Magazine and accepted. While there, I wrote a few articles (some of which have had critical acclaim in the community), edited a lot more of them, helped build the magazine into a publication read by over 500,000 people in more than 140 countries, learned some interesting new things each month, talked to some cool new people on a regular basis, and generally got lost in the insanity of it all.

I’ve even gotten fan mail. Weird huh?

Unfortunately, though our readership was through the roof, our advertising revenue wasn't so spectacular, so the magazine and I had to part ways in June of 2006 while the members wished each other well on their respective paths. With that, I am back to contracting and looking for a more full-time position.

On a personal level, I have had far too many hobbies. Currently, I don’t generally have a chance to do many of them past hiking, occasionally training in the martial arts, and spending some time at the lake.

In the past, thanks to foreign friends, I have been conversationally competent in German, Spanish, and Cantonese. While I have lost most of my skill in them due to disuse, I have maintained my knowledge of culture and customs in those areas of the world and plan to make an attempt at re-learning Cantonese in the future. I have also had enough skill in a few other languages, including French and Japanese, in order to be polite but not truly functional. My use of these languages is now extremely sporadic, though my friends claim that I am truly amusing when I am tired.

In addition to the languages I have enjoyed drama, chorus, rappelling, canoeing, camping, and traveling. I also grew up learning martial arts – primarily kung fu along with Japanese and European sword arts. I’ve even been an apprentice blacksmith.

I’m also a fairly avid bookworm and have a frighteningly varied collection of music and movies.

For a somewhat longer list of things I've done, you can look here. And if you're curious, you can always see what the early years of my technical life were like.

Don’t ask me how I’ve managed to do all of that, because the only answer I can come up with is that I didn’t sleep much. This was especially true during college when a routine week would be 70 hours or so just counting the classes, homework, and work. =]