trollcode: bio

The Early Years: 1974-1983 (Massachusetts, Berlin)

I was Born just over 33 years ago in Massachusetts at the age of, well, 0, the son of a country boy turned enlisted soldier and a city girl turned student of ancient languages turned full-time mother and community volunteer. My parents moved to Berlin when I was two or three, and I lived 500 feet from an imbiss stand and the smell of pommes fritas and wurst for over five years. This has apparently had some influence in my culinary interests; though wusrt comes and goes, I still love the taste of curry ketchup.

Notable memories from this period include frequent stomachaches, pushing my GI Joe truck up and down the dirt patch in the apartment's backyard, pretending to be a college football quarterback, turning sprinklers on traffic, 25 cent movies, including the opening of E.T. in the second-run base theater, which sold out over both nights for the alien-phone-home story, singing "O Tanenbaum" each year around Christmas, chocolate-filled coins, this peacock island where we used to go for peace and quiet, my favorie climbing tree, the KFC or otherly-branded chicken store where we used to climb out the restroom window onto the roof during hide-and-seek, winning money off GI's after betting them that I have over DM 10,000 in my pocket, only to show them the fake cut-out money. Every DM I won off them I plunked into the Pac-Man arcade table (the one where you literally looked down to play the game -- a classic!). I remember my upstairs neighbor had Pitfall for the Atari and I got into my first fight with one of the neighborhood kids. Every picture I see of myself reminds me how undersized I was at that age.

I also remember a few of the kids getting together to smoke cigarettes one afternoon, then running home to wash out their mouths before their moms found them. I went with but did not partake, a sign of things to come in my First Culture Shock Years.

The First Culture Shock Years (Virginia, Maryland)

Upon my return the US, I realized how much of a freak I was compared to the kids who'd lived in rural Virginia or suburban Maryland. They couldn't locate many of the countries in the world, whereas I knew them better than the cartoons on the tele. This got me into a lot of trouble, especially when we covered the three geological regions of Virginia. I'll paraphrase with "He's learnin' on his own, get 'im!" I also remember a lot of rocks heaved my way. The upside of this experience in Virginia was that I got to know my grandparents and uncle.

Once we moved to Maryland, my mother was very much involved in our elementary school, so we had someone to teach us how to solve logic problems and basic algebra, and to support me in cub scouts; she was the perennial den mother.

Middle school was not much different. I remember being held back from algebra by a teacher who was later found fondling one of the athletes he coached. And so it goes. I had fun repeating pre-Algebra though, and went to a math competition/camp where I met some cool kids. This was one of my first nerdings.

My first two years of high school were equally traumatic. Lots of fists in my face and uncountable bruises from playing too hard in gym class and from the fists of other boys. Ho well.

Special thanks to: Nate, Matt, Mike, Greg, Floyd, Rob, John, the Carpenter family, the Chester family, and of course, my own family. This was a very trying time for me, and you gave me reason and inspiration when it was otherwise lacking.

The European Years (Bavaria)

When I was 15, my family was given the opportunity to live in a small town 45 minutes southeast of Munich, Germany. Of course, I didn't fully appreciate it then, dropping firecrackers down manholes and throwing snowballs in people's windows. I consider this a period of adolescent rage against earlier treatment. Either way, I regret not learning German more completely, and long to return to this region of the world, if only to visit. And dammit, I'm gonna learn the language 'til I can chat at great length with the locals!

Of course, I also learned a lot about the country and myself while I was there, taking day trips by myself to the surrounding towns, and bicycling with my brother to wherever our legs would take us. I breathed enough alpine air to incorporate it into many of my actions for years to come. When Kristin met me, one of her first comments was that I came off as "vaguely German." I'm still trying to figure out what that means...

A few high school pranks include

Special thanks to: My parents, Greg, Rob, Matt, Matt, Malcolm, Norman, Michelle, Ben, John, Thomas, Toby, Mr. Moore, Mr. J. Manuel, Mr. T. Manuel, Mr. Seaman, among others. You made learning fun!

The Undergraduate Years: 1993-1997 (Baltimore)

After that year in Augsburg, I returned without my family to suburban Baltimore to attend the University of Maryland Baltimore County, a school perhaps best known for its riot-proof campus, chess team, and drama department. As it turns out, this university is also popular among employees of the National Security Agency for its computer science program. There are some freaky-deaky cryptographers (and those who are soon-to-be) meandering about the vigenerean halls of the compsci building. To some degree, I became wrapped up in this pursuit, leading me to my graduation in May 1997, with a BS in CS and an extended Creative Writing Minor.

On campus, we had fun "being stupid after dark" (ask me to tell you this story sometime -- it's one of my favorites!), juggling, learning to play music, and playing tons of hall ball, where we'd dump our collective collections of tennis balls in the hall and everyone would pick them up and throw them at one-another. Too fun! Great stress relief/release. Not to mention our easily 1,000 walks around the loop. That's at least 2,500 miles walking! Sorry, Alex and Mike for the long walks where I'd babble for 45 minutes about this and that. Oh well, consider it time served.

At UMBC, I had the chance to meet many brilliant and fun people, many of whom I still remain in contact to this day. I only hope that the friends I've made in my graduate studies will remain as close in the years to come.

Special thanks to: Alex, Mike, Carlos, Jane, Stefan, Tim, Julian, Carolyn, Julie, Mark, Aaron, Jed, Jim, Chris, Saven, Phil, Jason, Michael, Darric, Brenda, Dr. Stephens, Mr. McGurrin, Mr. Fallon, among others...you made my time there memorable and amusing, and I miss you regularly.

The Early Professional Years: 1997-2001 (Suburban Maryland)

The first rule of DoD club is "you do not talk about DoD club."

Seriously, though. My position in government spaces taught me a lot about how people interact, as well as how to maintain a legitimate work ethic when some of those around me spent their days managing other businesses, watching their stocks, and applying their knowledge of statistics to forecasting sporting events. Here I met my first mentor, madsenk, who provided me not only with problem-solving skills but also time to test out some of my own ideas. We worked, after all in a research environment.

After madsenk left for California, jlewis, a more senior-level person came on as our various projects' technical lead. He came from a Stanford background, and seemed to have a bit of an AI chip on his shoulder, as he had a very strong work ethic, and I sussed out that many of the folks he'd worked with in the past did not maintain the same integrity. I really enjoyed my time under his lead, and appreciate his cluing me on a few professional items and introducing me to Python. We had a fun rapport, as I would give him hell for printing out so many paper and other documents. Funny, I now do the same, finally understanding the value of a hard copy. He'd be amused to hear this news.

By this point, I had visited Austin, and wanted to try out a new place, so I was already doing my relocation planning. Needless to say, it was difficult to concentrate with the office going to SCIF-hell and me wanting to be elsewhere.

After four and a half years in that ever-more-dreary cube farm, I moved on to a corporate job for Group 1 Software. Hey, they offered me a pleasant salary and an office. I had hoped to be in Austin by then, but was delightfully delayed by meeting Kristin, and put off my moving plans to se where our relationship would take us. While at Group 1, I redesigned a few of their fringe client-server products as well as a Java implementation of their flagship product. Unfortunately, I had to leave the company when Kristin was accepted into UT, but fortunately, I was finally moving to Austin.

Special thanks to: Tom, Nate, Jamie, John, Matt, Steve, Jim, Chris, Carlos, Leonard, Melissa, Carolyn, Kristen, Alex, Mike, Saven, Kristin, Jason, Kirk, J. Lewis, for insights provided.

The Marriage of Mind, Soul, and Body: 2001 and onward (Maryland, Texas)

Kristin and I were married on June 23rd, 2001. A few photos are available here. Note: I'm still converting the site over from php to mod-python, so I still need to put together a proper photo album framework (or find one), so the link may or may not be active.

Since moving to Austin, our family has grown to include Smiley, a Texas Shedder (shepherd mix), an insane Border Collie named Cupcake, and an Aussie Mix and/or Blue Heeler named Handsome. You'll see many pictures in the Gallery (here and here) of our "bitches," so many that I think Kristin is sometimes threatened by the number.

Special thanks to Kristin...I couldn't have done it without you.

The Graduate Years: 2001-Present (Austin, Texas)

Yes, I listen to a lot of Simon and Garfunkel, but that's not where I'm going with this!

I include my wife's graduate experience in this bracket, as when one of your own is in school, the whole family is in school. You know what I mean... Kristin attended the University of Texas from 2001 through 2003, completing her Master's in Theatre History and Criticism. After a year of the two of us working and taking on tasks around the house, I decided that I needed to return to school in order to move forward with my professional life, not to mention my academic interests. After griping about not being able to go to school, Kristin and I convinced me that it was okay to apply.

All the while, I have worked part-time in the public school system, taught evening computer classes with the Capital Area Training Foundation's CTTC organization, worked with artists and clients part-time at a now-defunct gallery along over-trendy South Congress, or SoCo. In addition to those "gigs," I've worked full-time for the University of Texas Center for Space Research. Up until my current job, this was the most rewarding position in my entire professional experience. Finally, a place where I respect everyone I work with!

After my second year in the program, I took some time off to make some money to finance my further studies, as well as to gain some experience in the NLP field. So as a full-time dayjob I've taken on a challenging senior research position with 21st Century Technologies, an Austin-based company focused on applied research in the AI field. I've just come through a round of writing Phase I proposals and a Phase II for a project I'll lead once we receive funding. This is very exciting for me, as it lets me write about how I'd approach various problems and could lead to a contract. The possibilities are endless! I still hope to sleep one day!

Unfortunately this position keeps me off campus too much, but I made time to help organize and fund the TLSX conference in November, 2006. Unexpectedly exciting, this whole fund raising thing. I'm making slow by steady progress toward my qualifying paper, and have finally been able to clear up the time needed to really see this work through.

With my advisor Jason's arrival in 2005, I took on a GRAship, which, along with a full courseload and continuting duties at CSR, kept me rather busy. At CSR, I worked for Dr. Keith Hutchison in pollution forecasting, extending a tool originally developed at NASA-Langley for operational pollution forecasting within the state of Texas. In addition, I maintained various systems I developed to assist the earth science community. I hope to sleep one day.

Now I work for 21st Century Technologies, a small company that survives partly on SBIRs and dreams of commercializing our work. I serve as PI on 3 projects, and constantly write proposals and try to generate business. Thus far, things are going well, so I feel pretty happy with things. But I do need to make more time for school. I'm so close to really getting this stuff at the rigorous academic level -- two more semesters and I think I'll fit right in.

Special thanks to a list of people too long to list. You know who you are! If you think i don't recognize you, let me know and I'll be sure you're made aware of how I adore you.

The Future: Unbounded ()

Kristin and I plan to make enough money to buy enough acreage to not have any immediate neighbors, at least in one residence. That's not too much to ask, is it? The events of the future will determine where these acres are located, whether the East Coast, West Coast, Central Texas, or somewhere overseas. I'd envision Montreal, Munich, Stuttgart, Austin, and Vancouver as frontrunners.

But the real goal is to make enough money through starting politically-friendly companies that we can become philanthropists one day. What better way to leave a mark, short of curing cancer... For one of my (not so) crazy business ideas, talk to me in person at the next happy hour or other event that actually gets me out of work and the house.