Schoolin’:

B.A., New School University, Berklee School of Music (piano)

At USM:

I'm the resident expert in PHP, MySQL, and Unix systems, which basically means I make the complicated stuff work. A given day might find me integrating our sites with various Google services like Google Maps or Google Base, creating new ways for Real Estate agents to organize and manage their leads, or adjusting the way weather forecasts are displayed to reflect changes in the data provided by the National Weather Service.

Favorite part of your job:

Writing code is like solving logic problems for a living, and I've enjoyed it since I was a kid, going to computer camp and making games in PASCAL. It's amazing that what I once did for fun I now do for a living, and I'm kind of waiting for someone to tell me I have to go and get a real job.

Favorite Hobbies / Places:

Reading fiction, writing, playing and listening to music, Brooklyn, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, games, surfing the Internet.

Favorite Quote:

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." -Groucho Marx

Favorite spots in cyberspace?

Slashdot, Del.icio.us, LiveJournal, audible.com, sinfest.net, Google Reader, a billion blogs read via rss feeds on Google Reader, news.google.com.

Take 100 words to talk about something you feel passionately about:

It sounds cheesy, but I think there's a way in which fiction actually makes you a better person. Mostly, it has to do with how a really good fiction, like say, that of José Saramago, Philip Roth or Gabriel García Márquez, forces you to dig into deep and complex emotions. And this isn't just true of prose—for instance, I think even something like Buffy the Vampire Slayer has done lots for the women's movement just by forcing male viewers to identify with an independent female rather than objectify her...

“If you became President, what would be the first rules you’d make?”

I'd resign immediately. For once this country should have a president who's in touch with reality.