Where I Live

Currently I live in Seattle, Washington. If you want anything more specific than that, you're going to have to email me.

Occupation

I am currently employed by Microsoft as a Software Development Engineer. Currently, I am working on a feature for the next client version of Windows. My work is within the Terminal Services group, where we mainly produce software for remote access to systems and software. I've been working here since July, 2005.

Previously, I mostly worked in system administration and system programming for UNIX and Linux systems. I'm fairly platform agnostic in my development, however. I always enjoy picking up a new technology and running with it.

What I'm Like

Some one-liners, for now:

• I dislike personal marketing. Because of this, I am quiet around people I do not know. Also, this makes writing a page like this difficult.
• I value friendship a great deal.
• I have an enthusiastic and idiosyncratic sense of humor.
• I enjoy subtlety.
• I am, alas, a geek. Hopefully, I am some other things as well.

Things I Like

Possibly the best thing is just pleasant and engaging conversation with people I like.

This is often alongside one of my other great likes which is coffee. Where coffee is concerned, my tastes are probably a fair bit snobbier than the average coffee drinker, in that I go out of my way for the gourmet beans which I grind fresh and make in a french press as often as not. I can also be heard to rant about the inadequacy of what most coffee-shops call a cappuccino. Still, on the grand scale I probably only rate a 5 out of 10 on the coffee-snob scale.

Good food in general is one of the things that makes life worth living. I enjoy all sorts of food, from barbecued brats to escargot. In particular, when I travel, I do my best to sample the signature food of wherever I am visiting. Probably my favorite style of food at the moment is sushi. Of course, what is food without good wine? I enjoy wine quite a bit, although the culture of the connoisseur seems a bit ridiculous to me.

I am a fairly dedicated film fanatic. I have a few hundred movies in my personal collection and I see quite a few in the theatres. One of the best things about Seattle is that there are many screens to see art movies on.

I enjoy watching a few TV shows when I need to decompress. Right now, these include the following:

• Big Love
• Friday Night Lights
• Grey's Anatomy
• House
• Jericho
• Lost
• The L Word

I rely on my Tivo to make this possible.

I really enjoy playing pool. I got to be pretty good at it when I lived back in St. Louis and frequented Java, Jazz, and Blues and The Grind. These days I don't play very much, and as a result my skills have deteriorated a bit. I still play pretty well, particularly when I'm playing a skilled opponent. Lately, I've been trying to get in some practice of the beat-up table at work.

Unsorted Facts

• I am married to Melissa K. White.
• I used to be an extreme slacker. When I was an undergrad, I was very neglectful of my coursework, relying on extreme bursts of focused learning to pull me through. This worked out most of the time, but failed frequently enough that I graduated with a B- average, which has been inconvenient on several occasions. Since those days, I have developed a good work ethic, so with any luck I will not forever be judged by my youthful recklessness.
• I don't really have favorites in almost any area. Trying to name my favorite book or film would drive me insane.
• I am a big supporter of cryptography. I attach OpenPGP signatures to nearly all of the mail I send. I encrypt as much of my mail as I can get away with. If you want to send me mail, I encourage you to encrypt it with my public key (find it here). Casual cryptography use prepares the infrastructure so that when a need arises for truly secure communication is needed it will be easily possible. For that matter, it nullifies many of the annoying issues concerning privacy and government abuse of surveillance that keep arising. I am also a big advocate of protecting keys through the use of smart cards.
• I am co-guardian of an excellent dog. His name is Riley, and he personifies friendliness and high spirits.
• I am also responsible for a fiesty cat by the name of Captain Morgan, named after the pirate not the rum. I wanted a pirate name, and Mel liked the name of the oft-villified Arthurian sorceress, so this was a good compromise. Morgan is feisty, playful, and treacherous, just like any good pirate. Sometimes he is also known as Morgo (as in "Morgo the Cruel," "Morgo the Wicked," "Morgo the Dim-witted," etc.)
• I am a fervant supporter of free and open source software. I would say that most of the most useful software in my life is under some sort of open license. I occasionally contribute my own code to open source projects.
• I have no particular prejudice against closed source software. Most of my desktop computing at home is done under Windows (although only because cygwin allows me to do many the Unix-y things that have become second nature). Other software, such as Adobe Photoshop or Starcraft, have yet to be equalled in the open source world. I don't begrudge them the profit they receive, although I do wish they would try to keep prices reasonable.
• I am an enthusiastic omnivore. I understand vegitarianism and have dabbled with it in my time, but a moderate amount of meat in my diet is just too enjoyable.
• Most of my academic study has been in technical fields. Because of this I tend towards a very pragmatic approach to life these days. Often I must be reminded to step out of my training to experience the world from another perspective. This is nearly always rewarding. This isn't the way it has always been. Somewhere inside of me there is a deeply underfed literature major.
• I am an agnostic. I enjoy talking about spirituality and religion, but I don't have faith in any particular belief system.
• I am an Eagle Scout. I suppose that this has left its mark on my beliefs about life.