About Me (The Egotistical Page)
Last updated:
30 July 2010, 6:56am EDT (GMT -0400)
Places Of Residence
- Stonelick
Township, Ohio (2+ years, June 2008-present)
- Liberty
Township, Ohio (2 months of corporate housing, April-May 2008)
- West
Lafayette, Indiana (7 years, 2001-2008)
- San Bruno, California (5 month internship, 2001)
- Sunnyvale, California (3 month internship, 2000)
- San Luis Obispo, California (4 years, 1996-2000)
- Salt Lake City, Utah (4 years, 1992-1996)
- Orono,
Maine (5 years, 1986-1992)
- Denver,
Colorado (9 years, 1977-1986)
Education
- Purdue University,
West Lafayette, Indiana (2001-2003), Masters of Science,
Computer Science
- Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo,
California (1996-2000), Bachelors of Science,
Computer Science
-
Skyline High School, Salt Lake City, Utah (1994-1996)
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
- Einstein
(male Newfoundland)
- Prince (male Pekingese)
- Lucy (female Pekingese)
- Andy
(male Border Collie)
- Steven
(male Pug mix)
- Freddie (male Pug mix)
- Jimmy (male Newfoundland)
Foster Dogs
- 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.
- 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
- Big Dog (male Newfoundland),
fostered, placed with a Forever Family in spring 2008.
- Dora (female Newfoundland),
fostered, placed with a Forever Family in spring 2008.
- Pink (female Newfoundland),
sister of Jimmy, fostered, placed with a Forever Family in summer
2008.
- Purple (female Newfoundland), sister of Jimmy, fostered, placed with a Forever Family in summer 2008.
- 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.
- 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.
- Annie (female Newfoundland),
transported (owner willingly surrendered her),
March 2009
- 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.
- Annabelle (female
Newfoundland),
fostered June-September 2009, placed with a Forever Family in
Indianapolis, IN, 9 September 2009
- Bud E. Dog (male Newfoundland),
fostered September-October 2009, relocated to a new foster family closer
to the family who will be adopting him
- Fudge (female Newfoundland),
transported from owner surrender to foster home, 18 November 2009
- 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.
- 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
- Cooking. Fairly early into my stint in graduate school I
realized that I honestly enjoyed cooking for myself. It was a nice
chance to focus on something other than the intimidating pile of work
that was usually crushing down on me. Once I graduated and had quite
a bit more free time and disposable income I was able to explore more
of the culinary world. As of 2009 I feel comfortable calling myself an
accomplished beginner-to-intermediate cook. There's no question that
I've got a huge amount to learn, but that's one of the things I like
about cooking: there's always a huge amount to learn about
cooking no matter how much of an expert you are.
Feel free to peruse my Recipe List.
- Photography.
I purchased a Fuji FinePix A330 3.2 megapixel camera at Radio Shack
for $150 the day before I left for my trip to Cancun in January 2005.
I've found that I've enjoyed having it, but more surprisingly, I
seem to have some actual aesthetic sense for what makes a good
picture. Just in time for my trip to Maui in January '06 I added a 6.2
megapixel Fuji FinePix E550. In December '06 my dad very generously
purchased a 6-megapixel Nikon D50 DSLR camera for me for Christmas.
You can peruse the pictures I've taken in my
Photo Album.
- Housework. Upon moving to Ohio in the spring of 2009 I
purchased my first house. It came with five acres of land, though only
two of them could be considered the "yard." Learning how to take
proper care of a house and yard has been quite a challenge, but I think
I'm taking to it well. I do sometimes miss having weekends where I
could be lazy from 5pm on Friday until Monday morning.
- Socializing. In the spring of 2002 I was introduced to the
Rusty Bucket, a West Lafayette piano bar inside the
Neon Cactus. I was instantly
hooked and became a regular from 2004 until the spring of 2008. I
still manage to get back every month or two. The piano is well-manned
by the one and only
Bruce Barker.
Bruce does fantastic covers of well over 400 songs, focusing
fairly heavily on the 80s. It's definitely the best
entertainment I've found in the midwest. A good Cactus night is four
hours full of loud, raucus fun, good music, low-brow comedy
mixed with cheap drinks. If you're in the area, don't pass up the
chance to see what it's all about.
- Motorsports. Through my appreciation for Subarus, I was
pointed towards the World Rally
Championship, more commonly known as "rally racing." I've been
watching rallies regularly since early 2004. It's great in all the
ways most motorsports are terrible: the track is more complicated than
an oval, there are extreme restrictions on repairs that are allowable,
tire selections, and expenditures by the manufacturers. It's a real
test of human skill, engineering talent, and then throw some luck in
there. It's a blast to watch and encourage everyone to check out the
races now that they're being carried on HD
Theater (carried by most cable and satellite providers)
- Hockey. I first got into hockey while living in Maine. I
played for a few years, but trying to play with kids who learned how
to skate around the time they were potty trained was difficult when I
first put on skates at age 9. I found it far more enjoyable to
watch hockey, becoming a fan of the
Unversity of Maine
Black Bears, coached by the legendary Shawn Walsh. I got to watch some
truly excellent hockey by some incredible players, several of whom are
now in the NHL (Scott Pellerin, Keith Carney, Eric Weinrich and Mike
Dunham, just to name a few).
In Utah, I became a casual fan of the Golden Eagles, the local minor
league team. They left town but were replaced by the
Utah Grizzlies in 1994. My
friend Matt Fankhauser and I became devout fans and got to watch their
incredible 1995-1996 season which was capped with a 4-0 sweep of the
Orlando Solar Bears in the final round of the playoffs to win the
Turner Cup.
In 1995 the Quebec Nordiques moved to Denver and became the
Colorado Avalanche.
Matt
and I decided that the Aves were going to be "our team" as they were
the closest NHL franchise to Salt Lake. I've been a loyal fan ever
since, watching them win the Northwest Division every from 1996
to 2004 and winning Lord Stanley's cup in 1996 and 2001. As with any
Colorado fan, I've developed a potent hatred for the Detroit Red
Wings. After Todd Bertuzzi sucker-punched Steve Moore and broke his
neck as a result of riding him to the ice in 2004, I've also added
him to my hate list.
I've lived in the midwest since 2001 so I've developed more interest
in some of the area teams, such as the Chicago Blackhawks, St. Louis
Blues, Columbus Blue Jackets, Pittsburg Penguins and the Nashville
Predators. See the paragraph above regarding my feelings for the
boys from Detroit.
In 2004 I was able to finally afford DirecTV service and got the NHL
Center Ice package. In the fall of 2007 I was able to upgrade my
system to HD and now bathe in the true glory of having high def hockey
available. It's really helped my ability to stay interested in the
sport.
To the NHL: I'm not going to be happy with the new rules until you
finally get automatic icing. This touch-up stuff is stupid. It doesn't
add any drama to the game, and more importantly, people get seriously
injured when they lose an edge and plow into the boards. Fix this.
Soon.
- Skiing. Though I first learned to ski in Colorado, I didn't
get serious until I lived in Maine. I would consider myself to be
an advanced skier, skiing a combination of blue and black runs. My
best season was our first year in Utah (1992-1993) when I went skiing
21 times, often skiing three times in a weekend (Friday night, Saturday
and Sunday). Due to a knee injury in the spring of 1995, I don't do
any of the following: off-trail skiing, moguls, or jumps. Check out my
Digital Tribute to
Skiing.
Resorts I've skied:
Resorts I'm planning on skiing:
- Cars. I am a loyal Subaru
fan.
- Current car: 2008 Subaru Impreza
WRX sedan, 7 Aug 2007 - present
- Premium
Package
- Tires
- All-season: stock 17x7" wheels
with stock Bridgestone Potenza RE92A (205/50-17)
tires.
- Winter: 16x6.5" wheels with Dunlop Winter Sport M3
(205/55-16)
tires
- Upgrades
- Brakes
- Brake Rotors: Centric Premium
- Brake Pads: Akebono Pro ACT Ceramic
- Brake Lines: G-Stop Stainless Steel
- Brake Fluid: ATE Super Blue
- Planned Upgrades
- Wheels/Tires
- Replace stock 17x7" wheels with Rota SDR
17x7.5" wheels wrapped with Goodyear Eagle
F1 GS-D3 summer tires in 225/45-17
- Power
- Cobb Tuning AccessPort
(Stage 1, +9% horsepower, +10% torque)
- Suspension
- Previous car: 2001 Subaru
Legacy sedan, summer 2001 - Aug 2007
- Power
- Suspension
- All-season tires: Bridgestone Potenza RE950 (225/45-17) on
Rota SDR rims (17x7.5")
purchased from SubyDude
- Front & rear strut tower bars from Cobb Tuning
- Sport-tuned springs from iON Performance
- KYB GR-2 sport-tuned
struts purchased on
Tire Rack
- Whiteline
adjustable rear swaybar from PDM Racing
- Braking
- Stainless steel brake lines from Cobb Tuning
- Sport brake rotors
- Sport brake pads
- Cars I will own some day (oh yes, they will be mine):
Social Activism
I try to donate a reasonable percentage of my time and money to
organizations that further social causes I support.
- The American Civil Liberties Union.
They strive to protect the rights granted to all American citizens by
the Bill of Rights as well as the 13th, 14th, 15th and 19th Amendments to
the United States Constitution. In summary:
- Your First Amendment rights - freedom of speech, association
and assembly; freedom of the press, and freedom of religion.
- Your right to equal protection under the law - equal treatment
regardless of race, sex, religion or national origin.
- Your right to due process - fair treatment by the government
whenever the loss of your liberty or property is at stake.
- Your right to privacy - freedom from unwarranted government
intrusion into your personal and private affairs.
- Americans United for Separation of
Church and State. AU is a nonpartisan organization dedicated to preserving
the constitutional principle of church-state separation as the only way
to ensure religious freedom for all Americans.
- The Democratic Party.
I strongly support social welfare programs, universal health care,
drastically improving all levels of our educational system, defending
voter rights, improving our country's security through diplomacy instead
of military force whenever possible, womens' reproductive rights
including abortion, gay
marriage, separation of church and state, increasing the minimum wage,
civil liberties,
and gun control.
I strongly
oppose the death penalty, invasions of privacy, privatization of
sevices for the public good, and censorship. With the hope of
furthering those goals, I feel I am best represented by the Democratic
Party.
- Project Vote Smart. PVS is
a non-profit, non-partisan organization that tracks voting records,
issue positions, public statements and campaign finances of all
candidates and elected officials.
- The Innocence Project.
The Innocence Project is a national litigation and public policy
organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people
through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice to prevent
future injustice.
- The Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The EFF protects our rights in the digital age, focusing on areas such
as privacy, intellectual property, free speech, and electronic
voting.
- The Electronic Privacy Information
Center. EPIC works to protect privacy, freedom of expression, democratic
values, and to promote public participation in decisions concerning the
future of the Internet.
- Computer Professionals for Social
Responsibility. CPSR fosters public discussion of and public
responsibility for use of technology in systems that are critical to
society, challenges the assumption that technology alone can solve
political and social problems, and encourages the use of information
technology to improve quality of life.
- Project Gutenberg. This
project scans in public domain literary works and makes
them available for free download. As of April 2007 their collection
consists of over 21,000 items and 50 new items are being added every
week.
- Child's Play. This
charity was started by Gabe and Tycho of Penny Arcade fame. Gamers giving
toys and money to childrens hospitals around the world. I organized
Arxan's donation to Child's Play two years in a row which raised nearly
$6,000 for sick children and their families.