I’m not usually the kind of person that shares a lot of information about myself, particularly with people I don’t know, or don’t know very well. Having said that, I think its only fair that if you’re taking the time to follow my thoughts and ideas on this site, you should know a bit about where I come from and what drives the way I think, and all that. I’ve tried to organize things so that you can check out just what you care about, and ignore the stuff you don’t.
My Basic Info
I’m 29 years old, and have been ever since my 29th birthday. I expect that upon my 30th birthday, I will be 30. I live in southern California, and have for most of my adult life, but I was born and raised in southern Illinois. There are a lot of people, some of whom I know very well, who may wonder why I moved all the way out here from there, and given how sudden that move was, I can’t blame them for their curiosity. For an answer, I say only that they should spend time in both locations, and decide for themselves.
When I actually feel like being social, I spend most of my time with my brother Bill. As for how I spend my time when I’m not feeling social, there’s more information about that below, but to sum it up, it generally involves a computer or something electronic, and a lot of time spent indoors. I think at first glance you’d think of me as a fairly typical computer geek, and you’d be right.
My Work
I am a programmer and web developer. Those are really the same thing, its just a matter of where the final product ends up that determines which I call myself. I’ve been programming professionally for the last 6 years, and I’m currently working for RealPractice Inc, a company that provides technology solutions to the legal industry. Most of my professional work is done in Ruby on Rails, while I tend to write personal web projects in PHP, mostly just to keep things interesting for myself. I’m a firm believer in a programming methodology called Agile, which is actually an umbrella term for a number of specific processes. I don’t doubt that some of my ramblings on this site will be related to the subject of Agile development.
On a somewhat related side note, I had originally considered becoming a teacher. I do really enjoy teaching, and fortunately I find plenty of opportunities to teach in my current career choice. The difference is that I can do it for more pay and with less grief.
My Hobbies
First and foremost, programming is my biggest hobby. The best thing about the work I do is that even if someone weren’t paying me to do it, I’d be doing it anyway. It’s with that thought in mind that I release most of my work to the open source community when possible, (I can’t release work I do for my employers, naturally). In the general realm of programming and computer science, I have a fascination with computer AI and natural language processing, as well as with game development.
Aside from programming, I play a lot of video games, but my real passion is for older classic video games, and I often go out of my way to find these. There are some legal issues involved in that hobby, since most of the software I’m interested in, (called Abandonware usually), is still under copyright even though the maker has stopped producing or selling the game. However, there are a lot of game companies that are getting hip to the idea that releasing their older titles for free generates interest in their newer ones, so its becoming increasingly easy to find older games without any legal entanglements.
I’ll read almost anything and I’m constantly reading. At any given time, I’m reading 2 or 3 different books. It’s hard for me to really pick a favorite author, or even a favorite series of books, simply because I’ve read so many. I do tend to favor fantasy fiction over most other types, but that’s not set in stone either. On occasion I’ll even try to write, but I’m such a perfectionist when it comes to my own work that I rarely produce anything that I feel is worth sharing. If I were absolutely forced to pick my favorite contemporary authors: Stephen King, Tom Clancy, J.K. Rowling, Dan Brown, Raymond Feist and R.A. Salvatore probably top out the list, though not necessarily in that order.
My Politics
I’ve been a liberal ever since I started paying any attention at all to politics. I’m fairly moderate, and in some areas I’m downright conservative. Social issues are generally where my liberalism comes through, I think. Above all else I believe in more than cursory involvement in the political process. Even if I disagree with what you believe, I promote the idea that you should believe something and that you should believe it for reasons, and based upon justifications, that you have formed yourself. Listening to your favorite pundit agree with you on television does not constitute engagement in the political process. Actually listening to that pundit, occasionally disagreeing, and occasionally listening to people that always disagree with you, that’s a little more like it in my view. On the other hand, I’m not one of those types that thinks that everyone should vote. Some people should just shut the hell up and stay home. Vote if you really know what the hell you’re voting for. If you don’t know, or you just heard someone talking about it on TV…stay home.
My Religion
I believe in God. Beyond that, I’m pretty open-minded. I refer to myself as a ‘theistic agnostic’. What that means is that I believe in God, at least as an abstract theory. It also means that I don’t know anything about God. The entire subject of God and what rules we should live by, (if indeed there are any), is an entirely open question in my mind. I also operate under the general principle that an entire lifetime is still not enough to really learn any answers, the questions are just too opaque. For that reason, I have a number of beliefs but no religion. I don’t necessarily have anything against religion, insofar as its a unified collection of some set of beliefs, but what I do have a problem with is the tendency for all religions to judge other people through the prism of their own beliefs. I think its ridiculous to expect anyone to sincerely accept some canned explanation of life, the universe, and everything, without the research and verification and soul-searching of a lifetime. Christianity holds that if you ask God for forgiveness of your sins, and sincerely repent of them and believe, even after a lifetime of sin, you’ll go to heaven. I don’t pretend to have a clear idea of what God considers a sin, or even if he’s in the business of handing out forgiveness, but it does occur to me that if God does grant last-minute reprieves of this nature, its because he realizes that it’s the most appropriate time for a reprieve of any sort.
So, as you can probably guess, I’m like to spend a lot more time talking about this subject in the future, but this little bit should give you some idea of how convoluted my ideas on the subject are!