Who am I, and what am I doing here?
I could probably ask you the same question. But this isn't interactive, so I'll go first.
I grew up in a small town in South Jersey (which is very different from North Jersey, in that the south has trees and woods and hick bars and things), on a small lake. As a kid, I was always getting muddy and bloody catching turtles, fish, and snakes. It was a pretty neat childhood, getting to experience a lot of The Nature.
I took an interest in these computer things fairly early on, when my parents bought our first household computer, a Macintosh IIsi. Since then, I've owned enough computers and had few enough girlfriends to make myself a +12 nerd.
I ran a BBS in Southern Jersey called The Diving Board (I unintentionally 'borrowed' the name from another BBS in Ohio). I was one of only two BBSes in New Jersey that offered Internet access at the time (1994-1995), giving my users the ability to telnet to internet hosts and browse the web via a text-based browser.
In addition to the computer thing, I'm an avid bicyclist. Some might say a little too avid. I generally put between 700 and 900 kilometers on my bikes per month, which isn't too bad.
After a mediocre high school experience, I decided to go to Syracuse University for some schooling in Computer Science, and thoroughly enjoyed the program. While there, I was a DJ for WERW, the college radio station. I also ran the campus cinemas for a year, which was brutal but rewarding work. Additionally, I held a job as the "Junior Systems Administrator" for the college of engineering, and later went on to do research for the Systems Assurance Institute, doing some work on SELinux and some various red team exercises.
Totally unsure of what to do after school, I decided to go to grad school. I was fairly depressed living in the US, and felt like I needed to see a little of the world with minimal expense. First, I went to a school in Dresden, Germany (of Kurt Vonnegut fame). While there, I met an Austrian mountaineer, and we hiked often in the southeastern mountains of Germany and Austria. I also joined a Buddhist Group and meditated a few times a week with them. It was a year of self-discovery, and I have been happy ever since.
My money ran out after about 6 or 7 months in Dresden, so I returned home to win a scholarship to study computer security at my alma mater. I joined the University's Outing Club, which cemented my love of the outdoors and gave me some skills at things like rock climbing, backpacking, backcountry skiing, bear avoidance, etc.
After receiving my Master's in Computer Science (with a Systems Assurance Certificate), I was obligated to work for the government for two years. I ended up splitting my time between the Air Force Research Lab and the Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center. Government work was not for me, though -- rigidly defined pay structures and nontechnical management tracks scared me a bit, so I switched to the private world where I do communications software engineering and research for a small engineering company. I live in a sleepy town in Eastern Washington state, with my girlfriend, a guitar, and far too many computers and bicycles...
