Biographical Info

At some point that I don't really remember, we moved to Towson, a large suburb of Baltimore. I went to Gilman, a Baltimore prep school, from grades 1-12, went to Princeton where I got a BSE in Computer Science in 1994.

In July '94 I started work as a programmer at Z-Code Software (which is what Z-Code used to be called until NCD assimilated us and merged us with PCX to form NCD Software).

In mid-May 1996 I left Z-Code for CoSite, shortly before Z-Code was bought out from NCD by NetManage. Sadly, CoSite ran out of money in early November and laid us all off, so I spent a few weeks collecting unemployment.

In December 1996 I started working as a technical support engineer at Wind River Systems in Alameda (where they keep the the "nuclear wessels").

In May of 1997 I was wooed away by my manager at CoSite to go back to programming for another startup called goodcompany.com, which was located south-of-Market in San Francisco (and actually a longer commute time-wise from Novato than Alameda was). It went under too about a year later when our parent company, Advanta, decided to pull their funding for us. Sigh. So it was back to collecting unemployment (and severance too -- oddly some types of severance don't disqualify you from unemployment benefits in CA).

In September '98 when I landed a job at Inference Corporation, doing programming/sysadmin type stuff for the technical support department. i.e. I wasn't doing actual technical support, but I was creating and maintaining tools used by the support analysts. Inference and I parted ways at the end of October 1999. They've since been acquired by eGain.

Since November 1999 I've been working with a small handful of former Z-Coders at iPost.

I currently live in Novato, California, having moved from San Rafael in January '95. Novato is maybe 35 minutes north of San Francisco via the Golden Gate bridge (much longer during rush hour) and about 30 minutes northwest of Oakland.

In my spare time I play poker (usually at the Oaks Card Club in Emeryville). In July 2000 I won the Tournament of Champions. You can read my trip report here.

I also play roller hockey, mostly at the Bladium in Alameda, and recently some of us have started playing ice hockey at the Redwood Empire Ice Areana (a.k.a. Snoopy's Home Ice) in Santa Rosa.

Here are some pictures of one of my teams in action. I'm a fairly avid NHL fan (favorite teams: Canucks and Sharks, in that order).

Recently I've also started doing a little bit of amateur astronomy.

Other Stuff

Things I watch regularly on TV: the Sunday Fox lineup, South Park, Ally McBeal, Win Ben Stein's Money, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Space Ghost Coast To Coast.

Favorite food: most types of pasta. Drinks featuring strawberries (I'm a sucker for strawberry margaritas). Chocolate (especially when it involves hazelnuts).

Favorite color: sort of a blue-ish green

Movies I like (I'm not going to link them all; you can look them up yourself in the Internet Movie Database): Field of Dreams, Dead Poets Society, The Princess Bride, Flatliners, What About Bob?, Before Sunrise, Amadeus, The Great Escape, Avalon, Dick Tracy, Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources, Au Revoir, Les Enfants, and the usual complement of comedy and action movies.

Favorite novel: A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Other books I like: Lloyd Alexander's Prydain chronicles, Watership Down by Richard Adams, stuff by the authors listed below
Favorite authors: Douglas Adams, Robert Asprin, Terry Pratchett, Tom Clancy

Musical tastes: an interesting mix of classical music and mainstream rock, heavy metal, etc. But I'll usually listen to pretty much anything except techno. Favorite groups include Queen, Styx, R.E.M., and Weird Al Yankovic.

Favorite albums: The Grand Illusion*, Paradise Theater, Kilroy Was Here (Styx). The Works, A Day At The Races, A Kind Of Magic, Innuendo (Queen).

*Not to be confused with La Grand Illusion, an excellent Jean Renoir film.