The man with no title.

Just another aging tree hugging biker banging rocks together, only now I do it for the State...

It seems that my reputation precedes me as I return to the OSL as a contractor. Some of what has been said is apocryphal. I will set the record straight as to what is true and what are lies, rumors or things I will not comment about.

1 - Yes, I wrote an application that completely maxed out the OSL bandwidth for eight hours once a week.

Explanation: Sentry is Python application that I wrote for Mozilla to periodically checksum all downloadables from their mirror network. As it is multithreaded and IO bound, it is capabile of downloading a massive number of files simultaneously. The program was adopted by OpenOffice which has significantly larger downloadable files. The program was configured by someone that didn't think about the consequences of hundreds of simultaneous downloads of hundred megabyte files. Reconfiguring solved the problem.

2 - Yes, I did write a series of Python applications that would write Java and all those stupid XML files needed to create Java Struts applications.

Explanation: What can I say: I hate Java and all those stupid XML files

3 - Yes, I wrote an application that reverse engineered the Oracle database scheme for the ERA database even though the database didn't have referential integrity. It even injected documentation of the schema into the Confluence Wiki with dynamically generated ER diagrams and "round trip" commentary that survived updates.

Explanation: I didn't want to do my real work

4 - Yes, I was a fashion model for the French designer Mui Mui in 2002 and appeared in a photo spread in Maxim Fashion magazine.

Explanation: Apparently, I am beautiful to some people

5 - Yes, I own a nursery that sells rose bushes.

Explanation: the explanation is too long to put here: see http://uncommonrose.biz

6 - No, I have never programmed on punch cards.

Explanation: If I had taken FORTRAN one semester earlier, though, the story would have been different

7 - Yes, I've lived in a yurt in the woods for more than a decade.

Explanation: I'm a long haired, bearded, tree hugging hippie. Where would you expect me to live?

Language History:
1974 - NCR BASIC
1979 - Trash 80 BASIC
1979 - Z80 Assembly
1979 - Fortran 4
1980 - Pascal
1980 - COBOL
1981 - APL
1981 - SNOBOL
1982 - IBM System 34/36 BASIC
1985 - DEC Fortran 77
1986 - C
1986 - RatFor
1986 - 80x86 Assembly
1987 - Smalltalk 80
1987 - Smalltalk V
1987 - Objective-C
1987 - C++
1989 - Lisp
1990 - GTE Pascal
1999 - Perl
2000 - Java
2001 - Python

Theme for 2005: Will someone please show me a Web application that isn't a ten year step backwards in user interface design?

Theme for 2006: Will someone please meet my challenge for 2005?

Theme for 2007: Will some please just keep me entertained for the next thirty years?