You want to know about me? Wow, how brave. And potentially misguided. ;)
I'm 29 and presently living abroad in Germany on a temporary assignment for my employer (in the automotive and consumer electronics industries). Home -- as defined by the location of my home office and not necessarily my possessions -- is the San Francisco Bay area in California. I expect to return there in 2008, and at that time may even take steps towards staying in one place for more than a few months. Stay tuned!
I'm your average tech working in his late 20s... I enjoy travel, close friends, going out for good food and better drinks. When the urge for adrenaline kicks in, I love urban biking (SF bikers have a hit or miss - no pun intended! - relationship with cars), flying (small planes!), skiing (I recently discovered that I am not indestructible, however), and windsurfing (ok, I suck at this - but it's fun!).
I like to cook but would never pretend to be good at it. Nonetheless, a trend has emerged over the past few years where I seem to judge every potential apartment or housing situation almost exclusively by the kitchen (ok, and the projection wall), leading to a relatively fancy collection of cooking gadgets. I am a collection of culinary contradictions. I can make a mean Swordfish Siciliana or a killer stack of pumpkin pancakes, but I still haven't mastered the art of a good stir fry.
Did I mention how much I like espresso? No? Ok, Ritual Roasters, you are missing out!
I love dogs (some friends assert that I may have been a dog in a former life), and back in San Francisco worked as a dog socializer at the SF SPCA (still the nicest dog shelter that I've ever seen - when you walk in you can't HELP but want to volunteer there). They called it a volunteer "job." I called it getting to go to the shelter and play with the cutest of the cute dogs for as long as I wanted.
How'd I get here? I grew up in the [relatively] small town of Amherst, Massachusetts after leaving Michigan (where I was born) as a toddler. Through a set of unpredicatable circumstances, I ended up on the West Coast at UC Davis for college. What started off as a 4 year plan gradually became 5, then 6, and before I knew it I had been in Davis for 8 years. The upshot of that situation was that I spent 5 years making great friends working on plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, which is (in my humble opinion), the most promising development to rise from the ashes of the electric car. If you haven't seen Who Killed The Electric Car yet, do it now!
At the end of my surprise automotive career at Davis, I found myself interested in possession of an M.S. in Electrical Engineering (how'd that happen?) and interested in automotive -- specifically automotive electronics, control systems, and telematics. It just so happens that there's an active ecosystems of automotive OEMs and suppliers working on just those topics in the San Francisco Bay Area (which I hope will grow to rival Detroit in terms of automotive technology innovation), and I landed a job at one of those centers. I've been busy -- working, growing, learning, and traveling -- ever since! My job is seldom boring, and I get to cross the boundaries between industries (automotive and consumer electronics) as well as between geographic regions and cultures (San Francisco to Detroit and Germany).
You're still reading down here? Amazing. Well, I'm out of things to say, but if you want to know more, check me out on MySpace or (yes, I've sold out to the Web 2.0 man) Facebook.