I started my journey saying I would never be a programmer. I have always been interested in computers, so I wanted to use them for my career. When I was looking at majors in school I stumbled upon ISM (information system managers; goes by different names now) which is a melding of business, economics, and computer science / programming. After progressing though the core classes I started to really enjoy the programing side of things. What sealed the deal and was arguably one of, if not the most useful class I took was my database class. For extra credit we needed to create a web interface for a music store. I self-taught myself PHP over my week-long thanksgiving break. I knew at that point it was something I wanted to do.

For my current job I primarily program in Java. I interface with the following databases: PostgreSQL (pretty much the only database you should ever use) and Vertica (which likes to think of itself as a database but is just a headache). There is some shell scripting (Bash) and C as well.

Outside of my daily job I have worked with PHP, JavaScript, Python, C / C++, mySQL, sqlite, HTML, and CSS. I have done system administration and well as network setup.

My outside hobbies are cross country skiing (when there is snow) and SCUBA dive (when I am someplace tropical). For my indoor hobbies I like to watch movies / tv and play video games.