I’ve created this portal in the hopes that I (or you!) can find pretty much all the important stuff, and then some! (about me).

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What I Do

I’m a Software Engineer, Hands-On Technical Leader, Coding Architect, Versatile Developer. I strive to write applications that not only work, but are also simpler and more powerful than the status quo.

I’ve built desktop, mobile, server, distributed, and multi-modal automated systems. I specialize in modern tooling (including AI models and agentic coding), modern architectures (scalable, serverless/lambda, event-based), APIs (REST, GraphQL, queues, and recently, MCP) and data stores (relational, graph, vector, key-value, document databases).

I’m versed in frontend (React), text search (Lucene, MiniSearch, Elasticsearch), semantic processing, data/stream processing frameworks (Spark, Ray, BigQuery, DataBricks); automation (pipelines, scripting to an extreme); all kinds of testing, profiling, and and validation; and platform stuff: hosting in various cloud providers as well as generic Kubernetes; reliability, observability, metrics. All that.

Above all I value clean, simple, powerful, self-explanatory code. I also value collaboration and communication between humans.

“AI”

For the past 2 years I’ve been heavily into AI-assisted coding (let’s not call it vibe, or agentic … let’s leave it at evolving). Specifically, two things: Using the tools (to be honest: mostly babysitting them); and building multi-model systems to do new and interesting things (the term agentic systems doesn’t seem to do this new class of intelligent systems justice).

Origin Story

There’s a bit more to the story: I grew up on Applesoft Basic (Apple ][ +), dabbled in some 6053 assembly language, went on to Pascal. In school (that’s what we call University in the US), I took a detour through Math, then concentrated in Computational Linguistics. I did my coursework in LISP and C, then had a brief affair with C++. At work, I dove into Perl, Lex, Yacc, Tcl/Tk, VB, and The Web. I took a rather long detour into rule-based systems: CLIPS, OPS5, and Ilog Rules. Also constraint programming: Ilog Solver. Then back to mostly “mainstream”: Javascript, Java, Kotlin, Clojure, Scala, Go, and Swift. In spite of my mainstream chops, I still miss my Clojure and Elm (that’s Haskell for JS) days.

I’m torn, but still partial to strongly typed static languages for anything more complex than a script. That said, I feel like Python and TypeScript occupy a nice middle ground. And hey there’s also Bash, which I wouldn’t leave home without.

Where

Originally, I’m from the Willamette /wil-LAM-met/ Valley in Oregon /OR-uh-gun/, specifically Lake Oswego /os-WEE-go/. For most of my life I’ve lived in the United States. Currently I’m in the Front Range of Colorado (between Fort Collins and Pueblo), where I’ve been for quite a while. I went to University in the Boston area, followed immediately by Graduate School in Ohio (interrupted by a semester in Budapest, and another doing FORTRAN at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago). I’ve lived and worked in the Washington, D.C. area, and courtesy of being a Roving Coding Consultant, spent many a month in residence hotels: from Madison and Chicago, to San Antonio, to Philadelphia, to Cincinnati, to San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland; not to mention Shanghai and Bengaluru.

… also, Not Here

I’ve also lived quite a few years outside the USA: in Costa Rica (ten years), Belgium (where I spent middle and high school), Budapest (where I realized that my Math abilities are not quite what Hungarian education demands), and Düsseldorf (where my food and travel fixations found their happy place).

Play!

Languages … of the Human Kind

I’m a polyglot, meaning I groove to human language. I started my journey into foreign (to me) languages with French in Brussels, picked up a fair bit of German by osmosis, was hosted very graciously by a Hungarian family for a few months (so speak Hungarian very poorly). I learned Spanish in a Trial By Fire mode - because that’s what you do when thrown into a sea of Costa Ricans who don’t or won’t speak English. I studied (and read a lot of literature in) Russian for a few years while in University. I took a course in Brazilian Portuguese while in DC, so I’m an avid Portuñol speaker.

For the polyglot-curious: I’ve attended a number of gatherings which I must tout: the Polyglot Conference, the Language Event, and the Polyglot Gathering.

Related to my infatuation with foreign language is my collection of translations of various books, mostly Le Petit Prince. Here is my Little Prince Collection.

Languages … Created by Humans

I’m interested in Constructed Languages (conlangs). Have you heard of Lojban? How about LLM Pidgin? Or if you’re less interested in the language itself but are into scripts, alphabets, abugidas … Let’s talk!

The World. I Live Here

Because of my family, and my work, and just plain old interest, I’ve spent a lot of time traveling around the world. I’ve visited somewhere between 70 and 80 countries. I’m always keen to visit and try to figure out what makes various places tick. There are plenty of places of which I have zero inkling. My goal is to gain a sense of more … until I can’t anymore.

Books and Video

When I was around eight years old, I was introduced to The Chronicles of Narnia. I became ravenous, quickly finding Ursula LeGuin’s Wizard of Earthsea series, and the Dragonriders of Pern series (by another Oregonian: Anne McCaffrey). And then, of course: Dune. I haven’t looked back, although my interests have broadened: ancient history, culture, economics, society, literature - especially up through the Renaissance, science (of the computer kind as well as physics, nature, and the environment), and off-kilter fiction.

I’ve also become much more interested in audiobooks (because: eyesight, roadtrips, and airplanes), and anything which is Video: Movies, series, etc.

Oh and I collect

… Unfortunately. Books (these are heavy, and they dislike humidity). Beer glasses (these are bulky and fragile). Glassware (ditto). Blurays (these at least are lightweight and more or less durable). My house is literally sinking - picture your favorite 1970’s quicksand scene; or better yet, find non-Newtonian fluid videos on YouTube! - into the bentonite sea upon which one builds houses in much of the Front Range.

Eat, Drink, Cook

I enjoy cooking - doesn’t really matter what; from the staples of my childhood, to experimenting with flavors and techniques from all over the place. And then eating and drinking the results.