Interesting question. I’d describe myself as a writer, a programmer, a foodie, and a traveler, not necessarily in that order. I write fiction that ranges from literary stories to fantasy—but mostly fantasy—that’s appeared in various small press publications since 1990, but my output is (to be kind) sporadic. A collection entitled Why Coyotes Howl appeared from Sofawolf Press in 2005.

Until the end of 2002 I lived nearly all my life in and around Tampa Bay, Florida; I’ve been working with computers since the days of the TRS-80 Model 1, back in 1978. I’ve been a desktop publisher, editor, “data analyst” (doing statistics and network management), a technical writer, and a web developer. I left Tampa in 2002 to come out to Silicon Valley, jobless, after the dotcom bust, which sounds somewhat nuts, doesn’t it? Yet even in a recession, this area has many more tech jobs than Tampa Bay does, particularly if you’ve ended up with a skill set, as I have, focused around Unix (Apache, PHP, et. al.) rather than Windows. Since I’ve been out here I’ve had the highest-paid jobs in my life—and also the leanest years since the early ’90s. It’s (nearly) always been fun, but it’s sometimes more of a roller coaster than I’d really like.

At the time of this writing—November 2008, just after my mumble-something birthday—I find myself unemployed in a recessionary economy yet again, after spending over two years working on PHP development for a small (and apparently shrinking) consulting company in Mountain View. I am, as they say, considering my options. I expect to stay in the San Francisco Bay area, but realistically, who knows where I’ll be in 2010?