About Me (The Egotistical Page)

Last updated: 30 July 2010, 6:56am EDT (GMT -0400)

Places Of Residence

Education

Employment

In the spring of 2008 I joined Northrop Grumman Xetron, located in Cincinnati, Ohio. My job consists of performing all phases of the software lifecyle as a member of a small engineering team to create network communication software. I'm happier in my job than I've ever been. Every day I go to work I get to work with fascinating, cutting-edge technology for a clueful, well-funded customer, aware the entire time that the work I'm doing is important and has direct, tangible impact. I couldn't ask for anything more.

Prior to NG, I worked at Arxan Technologies in West Lafayette, Indiana helping develop their entirely cool software-based anti-tamper/anti-reverse engineering technology. I had interned with Arxan during my last year of graduate school and they were good enough to hire me on full time a few months after I graduated, in March 2004. As it was a small company (I was employee 21) my duties included a little of everything, including software design/development/testing, information technology, and quality assurance. By the time I left in March 2008 they'd grown to almost 100 employees, sustaining a growth rate of almost twenty employees a year. It was a fun ride.

During my educational career, I had internships with:

Animals

I'm in a relationship with a young woman who brought eight dogs (yes, you read that right: eight) into the relationship. She has been heavily involved with fostering/rescuing so she developed quite the diverse pack, ranging from 13-pound Pekingese to an 155-pound Newfoundland. In the summer of 2008 we added another Newfoundland that we'd been fostering but would have been impossible to place due to his particular challenges as a result of his life before coming to us.

With that many creatures running about we needed a sizeable yard, so the five acres (one of them fenced) that came with the house we purchased in Ohio come in handy.

We've done a fair bit of fostering for Newfoundlands since the spring of 2008. We've worked exclusively with the South Central Newfoundland Club. They've been incredibly helpful and supportive. I'm proud of the fact that we've been able to help them out through some very tough years; in 2008 the average number of Newfoundlands rescued in one month equaled the number rescued in the entire year of 2006. In these tough economic times, many families not only lost their homes but had to painfully part with their lifelong family pets as well due to landlords being unwilling/unable to allow renters with dogs.

Pack Members

  1. Einstein (male Newfoundland)
  2. Prince (male Pekingese)
  3. Lucy (female Pekingese)
  4. Andy (male Border Collie)
  5. Steven (male Pug mix)
  6. Freddie (male Pug mix)
  7. Jimmy (male Newfoundland)

Foster Dogs

  1. Richter (male Newfoundland), owner surrender in February 2010. He's about seven years old and was morbidly obese when we got him (target weight: 150 pounds. Weight at first vet appt: 215). His name is a reference to his initial weight (think "scale"). We've got him on a strict diet and he's quickly losing weight while gaining both energy and mobility (last weigh in was in May 2010 and he was already down to 170). It will require a really special family to take him as two of his knees are fully shot from his previous owners loving him to death, combined with the fact that he's a pretty old boy (7-8, typical life span of a healthy Newf is about 10). We're braced for him being a long-term foster but we're still optimistic that we can place him.
  2. Paula Deen (female Newfoundland), rescued in June 2010 after being abandoned by her previous owners and was running wild through the thickets of southern Indiana for at least a month. She's approximately four to five years old and was the exact opposite of Richter (meaning so skinny she was in serious danger of dying of malnutrition, initial weigh-in: 93 pounds, target is in the 130 range). She was deeply afraid of people when we first got her, which is a pretty strong indication of physical abuse. When we first got her you could feel every single rib through her sides, but we've already put seven pounds back on her. Also, we've gotten her to the point where she'll wag her tail when she sees us. She just needs to get her confidence back that food and water won't be hard to come by and some positive experience with humans and she'll be placed with a Forever Home in no time.

Alumni

  1. Big Dog (male Newfoundland), fostered, placed with a Forever Family in spring 2008.
  2. Dora (female Newfoundland), fostered, placed with a Forever Family in spring 2008.
  3. Pink (female Newfoundland), sister of Jimmy, fostered, placed with a Forever Family in summer 2008.
  4. Purple (female Newfoundland), sister of Jimmy, fostered, placed with a Forever Family in summer 2008.
  5. Darth Vader (male Lhasa Apso), RIP, 28 Nov 2008. He was part of Amy's pack when I first started dating her. I met him after he'd already lost an eye, so he contributed to the popular quote that Amy had 8 dogs which would imply 16 eyes, but unfortunately there were only 13. He had really bad hips due to a botched surgery and his tongue was always hanging out.
  6. Kogy (male Poodle mix), RIP, 28 Nov 2008. Amy got him from the Humane Society in Indy after serious abuse and as a result he spent the first several months hiding behind Amy's toilet in her condo. After a whole lot of intensive love, by the time I met him he was absolutely obsessed with being in someone's lap 24-7.
  7. Annie (female Newfoundland), transported (owner willingly surrendered her), March 2009
  8. Dozer (male Newfoundland), fostered April-June 2009, placed with a Forever Family near Bloomington, IN, 26 June 2009. Without a doubt, my favorite foster dog. From the first time he saw me, he was totally crushing on me. He came up and leaned on me every single minute I was every in the kitchen or back yard with him. It was very, very tough to not just adopt him, but after meeting his foster family at the annual SCNC Christmas Tree Pull of 2009, I have to admit I've never seen a better foster/forever family match in my entire time with dogs.
  9. Annabelle (female Newfoundland), fostered June-September 2009, placed with a Forever Family in Indianapolis, IN, 9 September 2009
  10. Bud E. Dog (male Newfoundland), fostered September-October 2009, relocated to a new foster family closer to the family who will be adopting him
  11. Fudge (female Newfoundland), transported from owner surrender to foster home, 18 November 2009
  12. Boo Kitty (male domestic short-hair cat), RIP winter 2009-2010. This cat actually came with the house, the previous owners asked us if we'd take over his care. He was a cool cat and an impressive mouser. He'll be missed.
  13. Margaret Thatcher (female grey tabby), MIA June 2010. She was a feral cat who was dropped off at Amy's clinic when very pregnant. They were able to adopt her kittens out, and we took her to replace Boo Kitty. She didn't like this plan as much as we did and was MIA within a couple of days after we brought her home and put her in the barn with a covered bed, food and water.

Hobbies

Social Activism

I try to donate a reasonable percentage of my time and money to organizations that further social causes I support.

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