So a lot of times you wonder, what do I do? Why do I have all this free time? What are my interests? Let's take one at a time in no particular order... Well, for one, I'm very interested in the way people communicate with electronic mediums. In the early 90's I was intrigued by high speed modems we had at my elementary school. We sent small messages to Japan using BBS. This didn't last long as we only had an hour or so a week to use the device and even then, we spend most of our time playing Oregon Trail. Intrigued was squashed early as living in a small hick town gave me a few options in high school: woodworking or auto repair. Where was my C++ or VB classes? At least I can build a small block Chevy from top to bottom. So I put my love of technology on hold until my last year in high school when I started doing web design for the drivers ed teacher. I also did work on the local grocery store's webpage, which until last year, had my design. It was nice knowing my web work lasted almost 6 or 7 years. My love the internet followed into college where I began taking programming and admin courses and I enjoyed it. Then of course there was 2000, when all the tech companies were buying new hardware for the Y2K bug, this caused a huge surge in tech stocks with the rampant buying and this would cause what we now call the Dot Com Boom. As the stocks soared, people got tech fever and funded anything that had the word "internet" in it. Then a year or two later, everyone realized, they had nothing and were investing in empty promises. The Y2K thing never happened, and now everyone had new hardware and software and didn't need all these new companies. My friends lost jobs, and I panicked and started doing business stuff. This bored me so I threw in CIS to make it cool. Till this day I love communications and the internet. So why all the free time to do this stuff? Well, What else is there to do in your free time, sometimes I go take photographs in the local parks and beaches. Sometimes I go to Trivia Night the 540 Club. But mostly I when I'm not doing any of that...car, photos, drinking...I do this.

The Details:

Job: I work for a really huge consulting firm as a computer programmer. I suppose my specialty would be J2SE, J2EE, XML and Databases. So far my job has been uneventful, I work at home a lot, but expect things to pick up this year. I am very fortunate to get a real, full time job with a famous company. I am very happy.

Computers: I now spend a majority of my free time exploring this world of modern communication. Weblogs have become the standard. They have been around for a while, one example is the once cool Slashdot. It was once a haven for really great geeky news, but now is hard to differentiate between paid ads and shoddy journalism. Half the stories have misspellings, typos..ok I'm done... Dynamic content drives us, first we used Perl and CGI to make "postings", then came php, now we have xml and rss (sub category of xml). We've come to a point where anyone can make themselves a news source, and our iPods and cell phones can get updates sent to them. It's a very fun time to be alive because the information revolution is happening all around us. Software how I love thee, let me count the ways, or at least list some of my favorite pieces of software I use often.
Unix Stuff:

• OpenBSD, my server OS of choice.
• CuciPOP, pop server
• QMail, SMTP server
• MySQl, my fav rdb
• Blackbox, my WM of choice when in a unix enviro
• Eclipse, one the best IDE's out there. I use it for J2EE
• Ant, makes deploying java applications a snap, and works with Eclipse
• Tomcat, a lightweight java server. JBoss is better I hear...

Windows Stuff:

• CDex, best free cd ripper
• BitComet, semi-good bit-torrent client, has some bloat, but works
• FireFox, best browser for anyone (except MacOSX, you guys got Safari which rocks, Opera is great too)
• TightVNC, great remote desktop program taken from the OG ATT VNC
• w.bloggar, a slow but powerful free blog client. Has some issues but works.
• Putty, the best little terminal emulator. Free. They also make some ok SCP clients
• Trillian, my IM client of choice
• Skype, the best VoIP free client. works well, you have to pay for dail outs/ins to normal phones

Photography: I love the way a moment is captured in a picture. When your friend laughs or a fire turns the sky red. A photo can take you there. I think photography took off for me when I visited Washing DC and took some shots of the monuments and surrounding buildings. It really gave me a chance to play with familiar objects to achieve a new perspective.

Cars: I worked on a 1967 mustang convertible for many years. It now resides in Las Vegas with my father. The next project is the Dodge Dart I'm working on. It's a 1965 and has a long way to go. Here's a link to my cars project page. You can follow it if you want. Should have some interesting information in the end.

Plants and Animals: I have a great collection of amphibians and cacti and ferns. Right now I have a three newts, two Japanese and one Chinese fire belly. I also have a green tree frog and two fire salamanders. Eventually all these will be documented on my plant and animal blog spot.