First off, I'd like to say, I agree with my friends that the third-person write-up was strange even though I've always heard that it's how they should be written. This section of the site is really just to talk a little about my history, what I like to do and crap like that. Below you can expand sections you're interested in.

I love learning new things! Ever since I realized I didn't want to be a policeman or an astronaut, I've wanted to be a Software Developer. I'm passionate about creating beautiful things from well written, structured, comprehensive code to broken compositions of abstracted figures, mugs, chairs and landscapes. I guess the short way of saying that would be that I really enjoy good videogames and coffee?

Drawing and Painting are continuous projects for me.

My current focus is creating a Flash game in Actionscript 3.

Once the Flash game is finished I will return to working on the Night Before Christmas animation.

I'm also slowly on and off writing a videogame demo on C/C++. For now, I'm doing all the coding and art myself, though if it starts to take off, I'm sure I'll be enlisting volunteers (I'm sure most of whom will probably just be friends who don’t know how to say "NO"). For the graphics engine, I am using Irrlicht (which I'm enjoying very much). I use Gimp and Blender for the art.

I first started getting into technology at an early age due to my love of videogames. A friend of mine and I would build our own computers to keep the costs of maintaining hardware that was up to date enough to keep up with the demands of new videogames down.

In High School, I started working at Loomis, Sayles & Co as an intern on the help desk. When I started college, I took a year off and worked in retail. A couple months taught me that I hate retail, so I taught myself Sybase SQL. I wrote a couple stored procedures that I knew Loomis would be able to use and sent them in. They hired me and since then I've been continually evolving within the company to meet new needs.

After doing database maintenance and writing stored procedures for awhile, a larger need for Actuate report developers arose. I learned the Actuate products and Actuate Basic (a VB derivative language). Through the Actuate team, I was exposed to the need for adhoc reporting. This is when I learned HTML, JavaScript, AJAX, SOAP and JSP. I developed a web UI (front end and back end) through which users can run customized reports against a database that had virtually no reporting at the time (which is an Oracle DB, so I learned Oracle SQL as well).

This exposed me to Java, which I took a fast liking to. I then used Java to write a standalone application that took over the responsibility of running monthly reports. We had been printing all these reports and sending them if/when they were needed.  This process let the reports be created, but then downloaded them to network drives where people could then pick and choose the reports they desired; digitalizing the process.  I dove headfirst into this application because it allowed me to be truly Object Oriented and use Design Patterns, which I find extremely fun and interesting to work with.  The whole OO style has been a very natural place for me to flourish and grow.  I have since added many processes to this application to automate and standardize the delivery of all sorts of reports on various schedules and outputs, PDF, XML, XLS delivered through email, saved on shared drives, or inserted as blobs into Loomis's databases.

  I have since created several other Web and standalone applications exposing me to Flex/ActionScript, PHP, Spring, DWR, Hibernate and JAXWS/JAXB.

  I love finding areas that could be improved and dedicate myself to creating the best solution.  At home I've been developing my own video game application using Irrlicht with OpenGL for the graphics engine, and modifying it to my needs. It's written in C/C++ using the standard library for collections etc. I am also designing the characters/environments myself in Blender and Gimp.

  At Mass Art I excelled in 3D design during my 3D animation classes in which we used Maya and Photoshop.  In 2D animation classes I used many tools such as After Effects, Adobe Premier, Flash and many others.  This gives me a deep understanding of artists' needs when programming and programmers' needs when creating art.

  Finally, I love purchasing books when I learn new skills. To begin learning C++, the C++ Primer was an excellent resource. I found C++ for Game Developers SE by Mike Dickheiser to be an exceptional read and defintately recommend anyone interested in game development picks up the book. I also read the OpenGL Super Bible; which physically feels like reading an encyclopedia, but the author has done a good job keeping it interesting with short historical backgrounds and concise, comprehensive explanations. Head First's Design Patterns was a great introduction and overview of helpful patterns. I am currently reading Martin Fowler's Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture and finding it helpful as I tackle my latest set of tasks at work. I read these kinds of books cover to cover because even in the review sections there tend to be little tips that teach better coding practices and problem solving skills.

Art has been a constant my whole life. I just enjoy creating so much. It's due to this passion that I went to Massachusetts College of Art for my bachelor's. I really enjoyed going to Mass Art and am still convinced it was the only school for me. I double majored in Painting and SIM. Painting's pretty straight forward, but SIM usually ends up requiring some explanation and the Orientation folk never really get it right anyway. In short though, SIM stands for "Studio for Interrelated Media." People tend to think of it as the 'do whatever you want' major. It's really a great major because it allows you to take studio classes throughout Mass Art and has a strong focus on presentation/critique. SIM does an excellent job of teaching communication, presentation, and the ability to take criticism and turn it into new skill sets. Through SIM, I took all the animation classes that Mass Art had to offer.

I have shown my paintings in a group show at Art Space @ 13, I hung my paintings in Starbucks, and am working on putting together a collection to show in Rockport. I've always been bad at making myself show my paintings, so hopefully this site will keep me motivated. Sort of a fun fact is that I won several awards at the Crane's Beach Sand Blast over a few years of competing.