About Me
In Short
A twenty-something software-developing, travel-loving, picture-taking, hyphen-using guy living in the world somewhere.
Ancient History
I was born abroad to two American parents, but moved to the U.S. while I was still a baby. The earliest city I remember is Phoenix, Arizona, where I lived until moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in ’87. I stayed there for two decades going to school, college, and work before packing up and moving to NYC.
Schoolin’
Whenever asked about my university days, I answer with equal parts pride and shame that I attended UC Berkeley. The hardest part is not being able to tell people (without lying) that it’s not as crazy as it sounds—unfortunately, I think it’s probably crazier in reality than most people realize. I would need more than two hands to count the number of times I witnessed classes disrupted because a protest group occupied the lecture hall.
Like most college towns, there’s a strong distinction in Berkeley between the city and the campus. Of course, the people in both groups are, on average, completely nuts. Luckily, studying Computer Science is a pretty good way to insulate oneself from all that. In any case, no one who knows me well would suggest that Berkeley’s politics rubbed off on me.
I was fortunate enough to be able to take some time to study abroad in Hong Kong. I didn’t know any Chinese prior to departing, nor did I pick up more than a few words of Cantonese while I was there, but the experience did inspire me to try my hand at learning Mandarin upon my return. I’m not sure I was an apt student, but I studied long enough to be given a Chinese name (譚鵬), to learn to write 你好 and 謝謝 for any Chinese-reading visitors, and to realize that most people who get Chinese-character tattoos are idiots.
The Daily Grind
I’m currently enjoying a spell of voluntary unemployment and homelessness by traveling around here and there.
Most recently, I worked on high-speed financial software at Tower Research. Previously, I worked at Akamai on everything from core server software to desktop-based applications. Before that, I interned at the Smart Systems Research Lab at NASA Ames, helping to develop a realistic 3D simulator of the International Space Station to assist with training.
On the Side
When not working, I spread my time among a number of time-wasting diversions. Travel and photography go together and take the top spot. There’s nothing quite like getting completely lost in an unfamiliar place where everyone speaks a language you don’t, and finding some way to make it all work out for the best.
I also enjoy throwing myself down snowy mountains. I’m a sub-par snowboarder, but an OK skier. Sledding can be fun, but takes too much darned work what with all that tramping up the hill. Now, if they installed ski lifts on sledding hills… Apparently, sledding lifts do exist now! “What a time to be alive.”
And, obviously, I spend some of my time in the world of web publishing, slaving away at this web site for your amusement. (Actually, that’s a bald-faced lie: I spend only a little time here and there on it, and it’s all for my own enjoyment.)