I was born in Amarillo, Texas on November 10th, 1973. I grew up in the country, surrounded by dirt farms, riding dirt bikes along the railroad tracks. I lived in Northern Virginia for two years. During that time, I was bussed to an inner-city elementary school in Washington D.C. where I learned that racism sucks, and that whites are not the only racists.

I was a band geek in high school, drum major my senior year. I attended a small school (as in a graduating class of less than 30) where most of the population was “white trash”. There I learned that being accepted socially is only as valuable as the society in question. Being popular amongst a small group of alcoholic, sex crazed, football obsessed teenagers does not make you a valuable person and being unpopular in that environment may actually mean you are better off.

I spent four years attending Amarillo College and two and a half years at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. So, in fact, college really was the best seven years of my life. I walked away with an Associate Degree in Engineering and Associate and Bachelor Degrees in Computer Science.

My college girlfriend followed me from Texas to Colorado, so I married her. Tammy is the best thing that God has ever given me.

I graduated College in December of 1999 and entered the tech world months before the “tech bubble” burst. I was laid off twice in nine months and forced to move to my parent’s horse ranch (not the one on which I grew up) outside of La Grange, Texas (probably the most unfriendly town in the most friendly state in the Union). God pieced together an unlikely series of events that brought me to my current job as a Senior Web Developer at Alt-N Technologies in the Dallas metroplex. Alt-N is the best employment I’ve ever had. I love this job, even when it’s hard and consumes all my time (which, thankfully, is rare).

Tammy and I are deeply involved in serving God through Glenview Baptist Church. I’ve taught Sunday school to youth since 2004. We’ve both been involved in the theater ministry, now known as Stage Right Theater, since 2003 in both on and off stage roles.

I’m a geek, but not to the point of social stigma. I helped to write and manage a MMORPG, but I’ve never wanted to prance around a public park with a sword shouting, “Magic Missile!” I have a pretty nice gaming PC, but have never thought case mods were “cool”. I know a lot about J.R.R. Tolkien and his writings, but I haven’t read the Silmarillion. I had a blast at the Star Trek Experience in Vegas, but I still haven’t see all ump-teen Trek movies. There are a few TV shows set to record on my DVR, but I’ve never had reason to hack the hard drive. I maintain five web sites that are not related to my job, but I never made a friend online before becoming friends in person… Oh. Well, I don’t check FaceBook more than once a day… Oh yeah. I’m not on the internet for more than six hours a day… Ooh, rats. Okay, so when it comes to the web, my geek score nears the top of the chart.