I was born on a cold winter’s night in Topeka Kansas in the Decade of Disco.  Due to an acci­dent involv­ing my cra­dle and a run­away 72′ Chevy Impala, I grew up as a feral child of the prairie.  I made my bed in the grass beside the pheas­ant and quail, drank my fill of the cold water of springs, and dined on the lean meat of rab­bit and squir­rel.  After sev­eral bliss­ful years,  I was cap­tured and reha­bil­i­tated at Pastor Perryton’s School For Ornery Snots.  I am now a proud Snot alumni.

I next did my time in that tor­ture cham­ber known as high school in a lit­tle col­lege town called Lawrence.  They also called it Larryville, L-town, Blue Dot on a Red Map,  and The City that Sleeps From 9 to 6 Except For The Hill, They Never Sleep, Those Damned College Students.  Okay, so maybe my par­ents were the only ones to call it that last one.  They were com­muters.  Forgive them.

Me, I yearned for some­thing more.  Something that smelled worse, had even less to do for fun, and was so bor­ing, I would have no choice but to learn the lib­eral arts.  Kansas just wasn’t rural enough for my tastes, so I hitch­hiked with the cir­cus  to The College In The Cornfield, a lit­tle known insti­tu­tion by the name of Grinnell College. I was promptly caged in a tiny dorm room, given a room­mate with a girl’s name, and assaulted with knowl­edge on an hourly basis. Eventually, they released me, but only after inflict­ing me with a Bachelor of Arts in Biology, $50,000 in stu­dent loans ensur­ing I would never work in the field of biol­ogy, and a wife.

I got off easy.  They gave my wife a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and me.

Not one to do things half­heart­edly, I grad­u­ated on a spring morn­ing in 2001.  I mar­ried my amaz­ing wife in the after­noon at a small cer­e­mony under a stun­ning 120 year old cot­ton­wood tree.  And then I drove six­teen hours to Laramie, Wyoming in a con­voy con­sist­ing of a red 1989 Grand Am, a motor home the size of a semi truck, and a brown mini­van that smelled like greyhounds.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Upon arrival, I took a job as an IT man­ager at a local credit union.  Surprisingly, there was very lit­tle web design work to be found in Wyoming.  Instead, I worked by day in a dimly lit stor­age closet that was con­verted into my office, and at night, I hunched over yet another bloody com­puter and began to hone the fine art of telling lies.  That is, writ­ing sci­ence fiction.

Eventually, the credit union grew, and we built a new build­ing that gave me my own office with no win­dows, slightly bet­ter light­ing, and chronic eye aller­gies. I passed the time answer­ing the phone and teach­ing ranch­ers how to access their bank state­ments online while bal­anc­ing a ziplock bag of ice on my face.   Slowly, I began to real­ize that some­thing was lack­ing in my life.  But what could it be?  I had a wife, two cars, a house built at the turn of the cen­tury, and a job in the finance sec­tor.  I had a small but grow­ing port­fo­lio of free­lance clients and a few pub­lished short sto­ries (I’m big in Europe). But now that I think about it, I couldn’t see and it was cold all the time.

We escaped Laramie under a hail of gun­fire that I don’t want to talk about and set­tled in another col­lege town an hour south, home of the University of Colorado, home of tree-shaded streets and a sum­mer that comes six weeks ear­lier and stays four weeks longer than the one in Wyoming.  And things were good.

We par­took in liba­tions, dance, and song.  We made new friends, and recon­nected with old ones.   But even­tu­ally I found myself boxed in cre­atively at work, a con­ser­v­a­tive back­ground screen­ing firm that shall remain name­less.  Recently, as a show of sup­port, my employer help­fully laid me off, along with sev­eral cowork­ers.  I took the sev­er­ance and ran… straight into my home office, where I laughed hys­ter­i­cally while writ­ing cover let­ters and updat­ing my resume.

The expe­ri­ence has made me a changed man.  I’m no longer con­tent to flee one col­lege town after another, leav­ing behind only unan­swered ques­tions and the faint smell of cherry cola.    Now I seek the Ultimate Job:  Creative Fulfillment, a Generous Benefits Package, and the Challenge of a Lifetime. No short order, but I feel that I have girded my loins (heh, he said loins) in my time among the west­ern peo­ples, and I am now ready to ven­ture forth into a big­ger world.  A world where stuff needs design­ing.  A world as wide as the web, and a lit­tle less pretty than it should be.

Can you aid me in my quest?

Some Other Things About Me You Might Want to Know

Because I am a huge geek, I have the expected low-level video game addic­tion. I can quit any time I like, I swear.

I also write sci­ence fic­tion and fan­tasy short sto­ries, and have even pub­lished a few.  I am a pho­tog­ra­pher, shoot­ing a vari­ety of sub­jects (with a cam­era, offi­cer, I swear!), but with a spe­cific inter­est in my steam­punk pho­tog­ra­phy project of Dr. Roundbottom. One day, I hope to have a sculpt­ing stu­dio set up in my home, and when I have time, to begin pod­cast­ing again. I’ve been known to go on Bigfoot hunt­ing expe­di­tions.  No, I don’t believe in Bigfoot.  The peo­ple who do are more fun than a trip to Vegas, though.