About Me

I have enjoyed computer programming since I was 7 years old when my father introduced me to BASIC on the Apple II. These days I write code in C, C++, Java, PHP, Pearl, and Bash. The types of programs I enjoy building and tinkering with in my spare time include neural nets, genetic algorithms, hardware emulators, OpenGL applications, and modules that implement network protocols and file formats from functional specifications.

I was born in Fort Lauderdale, FL, in 1977. My family moved to Lenoir, NC in 1979, and that's where I lived until I moved to Boone, NC in 1995 to attend Appalachian State University. I majored in Computer Science and graduated in 1999. I went back for a year as a graduate student, but I left when it became clear that that wasn't what I really wanted to do.

I lived in Boone for a couple of years afterwards. I got a job as a Java developer in August, 2000, but everybody was laid off in August, 2001, when the company went out of business (dot com bust). I was unemployed until November, 2002, when I moved to Charlotte to work for an IT consulting company. That lasted about two and a half months. It turned out they didn't have any open software developer positions after all. They had put me in a technical analyst role "temporarily" until a software developer position became available, but they ended up just firing me. So I was unemployed again.

I got a job at GNAX in August, 2003, doing system administration and internal development, and moved to Snellville, GA. I moved to Stone Mountain in September, 2004 to get a cheaper apartment. I left GNAX in February, 2006 to start my own online backup business, but I gave up on that pretty soon.

I moved back to Lenoir, NC in June, 2006. In 2007, I got a job at Google's Lenoir data center as a hardware technician. I'm still working there.

I currently have two cats, Pokey and Porky. I adopted them as kittens last year.