About
I am a geek. I relish the opportunity to learn, to discover, to think, and to create. It started with Legos, but I had the foresight and luck to pivot my tendencies into a successful, self-started career in information technology. This was fortunate because Lego consultant work is hard to come by.
By day I am the Operations Manager and a senior software developer at a successful Internet startup. Like every job I've had, my position quickly settled into being the guy that makes sure that everything works as well as possible. This means I program, I design, I innovate, and I maintain.
At home, my spare time is usually spent browsing through obscure reference documentation and writing code for whatever crazy little pet project I've concocted or perhaps teaching myself a new programming language or environment. To most people that sounds like work, but sadly (for my wife) it is my idea of fun.
I am always looking for new challenges and opportunities.
Projects
Projects are the life-blood of the geek. For me, they are by far the most productive way to learn. So whenever I want to learn something, I scheme up something in the area of concern to tackle. Bonus points if somebody else actually finds it useful.
- Radar Livepaper - This is my most successful side project to date. It's a Live Wallpaper for Android phones that displays the current radar imagery from any National Weather Service radar site.
- Vitrite - Probably my most popular project. It's a Windows utility that allows you to adjust the transparency of any window. I made it several years ago and it's still downloaded about 50-60 times per day.
- Scrybe - This was a fun little hack I did that combines an Android keyboard with Google Labs' Scribe project. There is no official API for Scribe, so it's not really a viable commercial product. So for now, it's just a free tech demo.
- GLaGPS - Total goof-off project. This is a custom voice for the Garmin line of GPS devices in the style of the imitable GLaDOS from the video game Portal. A little silly perhaps, but it was quite fun to do.
- Gas/Oil Mix - This was my first Android project. It's painfully simple, but it served as a nice 'Hello World' application to get my feet wet with the Android SDK.
- Yakeze - An AJAX group chat application that stresses convenience over security. This was a quick project I banged out to test out AJAX on Google App Engine.
- My Jeep - Jeeps are ongoing projects. If your Jeep doesn't need something repaired, you're not doing it right. I have an '87 Jeep Wrangler that has suffered catastrophic failure of the engine, transmission, and rear axle. Using nothing more than the Internet I was able to upgrade the engine and transmission to completely different models (1995 4L engine, 1996 AX-15 transmission). It may not be as mystical as bit twiddling, but automotive hackery is definitely geeking out.