Personal details
-
Married: Yes, to a beautiful, wonderful
woman who is incredibly patient
-
Children: 2 wonderful boys
- That's already more than you needed to know...
Work
I am fortunate enough to
work at one of the greatest companies in the world -- Microsoft. I
am currently a developer on Visual Studio. Before that
I was a development manager on the Windows team
working in the base operating system. Before that I
was a development lead on the Windows User Experience team
(see pictures of my
office).
Before that I was the development manager for the MSN
Explorer client team. Before that I was a development lead
on Internet Explorer.
Prior to working for
Microsoft, I worked on all kinds of other interesting stuff:
- IFusion: an
Internet startup doing "push" technology which
eventually went bankrupt -- don't bother going to
www.ifusion.com
on my account -- it ain't the same company I worked at.
-
PRC: I wrote
the development and runtime environment for the
automated test environment for the USN AEGIS radar
systems and worked on some interesting digital imaging
and office automation projects.
-
Stanley Associates:
Worked on USMC logistics software (I got to go to Saudi
Arabia during the Gulf War for this gig!), USN Tomahawk
Cruise Missile, and a bunch of random little
sub-projects.
-
Over the years I've developed some random little pieces
of shareware/freeware. As I dig things up, I'll post
them here -- some things may be still be relevant (we'll
just chuckle about the rest).
- You're bored, I can
tell. I'll stop.
Music
I play guitar and bass. I used to play in hard
rock bands. Since I'm a computer geek, I also have
synthesizers and keyboards. I can't play a
keyboard very well (in fact, I suck) -- that's what the
computer is for.
My musical tastes
-
Steve Vai
is my favorite musician ever.
- I love classic rock.
I cut my teeth on the Stones, Who, Zeppelin Hendrix,
Jeff Beck, Robin Trower, etc. I still love this stuff.
- I still like Kiss.
There, I've said it. Now leave me alone about it. Not
another word.
- Frank Zappa -- what
can you say. What an incredible musician, composer,
man. Rest in peace Frank.
- I discovered Black
Sabbath, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and AC/DC in high
school. I never got over it. I'm definitely into heavy
metal/hard rock/head banging music. It's why I have
unstylishly long hair.
- Actually, there's not
much I don't like. I like a lot of Jazz (Miles Davis is
in my regular rotation), 50's doo-wap, Frank Sinatra
(the dude could sing!), classical (mostly the familar
stuff like Mozart, Pagannini, Beethoven, Chopin), Funk
(can you say Rick James?), Motown (Jackson 5 -- the
music of my childhood), you name it. I've even grown to
like some country music (Clint Black and Garth Brooks
come to mind). I do draw the line at Rap (unless it's
some of the older stuff like Grand Master Flash) and
grunge rock.
My deserted island song list
- "No Quarter" (the live
version on "The Song Remains the Same") by Led Zeppelin
- "Stairway to Heaven"
(once again, the live version)
- "Stay the Night" by
Buddy Guy (on the Sweet Tea disc)
- "Bus Stop" by The
Hollies
- "Bridge of Sighs" by
Robin Trower
- "Blue Wind" by Jeff
Beck
- Pretty much any pre-Sammy Hagar Van Halen (although
Sammy does an incredible job on "How will I know when
it's love") -- "Atomic Punk" or "I'll Wait" would be
among my first choices
- "Tuesday's Gone" by Lynyrd Skynyrd (or maybe "Simple
Man" -- tough call)
- "Sympathy for the
Devil" (the live version on "Get Yer Ya Yas Out") by The
Rolling Stones
- "The Lady Wore Black"
by Queensryche
- "Strangers in the
Night" by Frank Sinatra
- "Midnight Confessions"
by The Grass Roots
- "Victims of Changes"
by Judas Priest
- "The Love You Save" by
The Jackson 5
- "Walk" by Pantera
- "Kiss From a Rose" by
Seal
- "The Wind Cries Mary"
by Jimi Hendrix
- "Peaches En Regalia"
by Frank Zappa
- "G-Spot Tornado" by
Frank Zappa
- Anything off the "Back
in Black" album by AC/DC
- All of my Steve
Vai recordings -- I simply will not go to a deserted
island without them
- Come to think of it, I
should be able to take most of my music collection -- I
should be able to rip them down to much smaller WMA or
MP3 files and burn them onto a DVD ROM or two. The hell
with choosing...
Hot Wheels
I got started on
this when my wife had me going to stores to try and find
particular cars to complete sets for my eldest son.
Little did she know what this was going to turn into :)
-- visit my
Hot Wheels
site. Now I'm a full fledged collector myself. I have
thousands of these little cars. Periodically I take my
extra cars to a toy show or a swap meet and buy, sell,
trade with other collectors (and scalpers).
Update: I sold 99.999% of my Hot Wheels collection
so this isn't particularly relevant anymore.
Speed Racer
I really liked Speed Racer as a kid. So when I saw
that Johnny Lightning made some little diecast cars
of the Mach 5, Shooting Star, GRX, etc. I picked
them up. This led to picking up a video or two.
This led to my youngest son being totally obsessed
with Speed Racer. Now we have all 52 of the
original episodes on video tape, 1/18th scale Mach
5, action figures, comics, etc. (you get the idea).
Now I must regularly troll eBay for Speed Racer
stuff.
Model Trains
I collect Märklin trains -- H0 and Z guage primarily but
I also have some I and Maxi stuff as well. Since I
started with Hot Wheels a couple years ago I haven't
spent much time with the trains unfortunately.
I started with hobby many years ago when I got a Märklin
train set for Christmas one year. I had a small layout
with houses, people, etc. I suppose I grew out of it
and the stuff sat in boxes until one Christmas season we
wanted to setup a train for my young niece. It was only
a matter of a few weeks before I was totally hooked and
buying all kinds of stuff to add to my collection.
Star Wars
I'm not a fanatic but I really dig it. I love the
movies. And unlike most of you, I really enjoyed Episode
I. I've read most of the follow on books. I also sort of
collect some Star Wars toys -- mostly the action figures.
When I was younger I really
liked the original Star Trek. Now, I find it quite painful
to watch. Almost as bad as the Brady Bunch: bad haircuts,
bad acting, and go-go boots. Even the newer Star Trek
series' (TNG, DS9, Voyager) are little too melodramatic for
my tastes at times. They're too much like daytime soap
operas.