I was born on Saturday, July 29, 1967, at 6:10 P.M. in a small hospital in Houston, Texas.  My mother was a 6th grade English teacher and my father was a chemist.  I spent the first eight years of my life out in Houston and had a lot of fun being with my parents, my grandmom and grandpop, and my aunt, uncle, and cousins.  We had a few more relatives out there, but I don't remember them too well from my early years -- I mostly remember them from later on after we had moved away.

In 1975 we moved from Houston to Laurel, Mississippi, so my father could get a better job.  They grew up in Laurel or just outside of it -- they were even married in the First Presbyterian Church there -- so this was coming home to them.  To me it was a bit of a shock, but I eventually adjusted to the new environment.  I thought for a long time that it was the hind end of the Earth, but we had a nice house in a great neighborhood and it was densely wooded and had all sorts of wildlife in our backyard.  For the first time I saw cardinals, bluejays, hummingbirds, squirrels, and even quail.  You just don't get that in the big city.  My life there growing up was boring and I often wondered about what life would have been like if we'd never left Houston, but it did have its good points and I wouldn't be me if things hadn't happened the way that they did.  Instead of being an educated professional I might have been asking people if they wanted fries with their order.

I attended the University of Southern Mississippi, located in Hattiesburg, for my undergraduate degree.  Since the university was 30 miles from home I commuted for the four years it took to get my B.S.  I graduated in 1989 and promptly went right back in for another two years for my M.S.  I got that in 1991 and, not yet having had enough punishment, I decided to get my Ph.D.

I went to the University of Southwest Louisiana (now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette) for my doctorate and was there for six years.  I had to repeat my M.S. work since, unlike undergraduate programs, graduate programs are loathe to accept courses from other universities.  Then, between taking comprehensive exams, working on my dissertation, and working for a living to pay the bills another four years managed to slip by.  By the way, USL is located in Lafayette in the heart of Acadiana, one of the best places I've ever lived.  I consider myself a born-again Cajun.

After getting my Ph.D. in 1997 I decided that I wanted to make more of a contribution to the lives of others than I could with designing software, so I took a teaching position at Louisiana Tech University, located in Ruston.  I was there for eight years, saw a lot of people and influenced a lot of lives.  It was fun as well as an incredibly enriching experience that has made me a better computer scientist as a result.  It was also somewhat of a bittersweet job because I had to watch the kids I taught graduate and leave, but there was always a new batch coming in who needed me even if they didn't realize it yet.  People say that teaching is a calling, and I think they're right, but it certainly isn't a sacrificial one.

It was while I was teaching at Tech that I met Julie.  She was a kindergarten teacher in New Orleans and we had a long distance relationship for about six months until she decided to take the ultimate chance on me and take a job up in the Ruston area, leaving everything she ever knew behind.  We were married on New Year's Eve, 1998, at Messiah Lutheran Church on Highway 165 in Monroe.  As if I needed a reminder that all good things must come to an end, my teaching job and our marriage didn't last.  I didn't get tenure and had to take a job as a software engineer in Lafayette in June, 2005.  Julie wouldn't relocate, so we wound up living apart and seeing each other on weekends when I'd drive up to Ruston.  That was too much of a strain, I guess.  We split up on, ironically, New Year's Eve, 2005, and the divorce was finalized about that time in 2006.  She's back in New Orleans teaching again and I wish her the best.

2006 wasn't a very good year for me.  My divorce took the entire year, and around March my mom suddenly got really sick for no apparent reason. After going in the hospital in April we discovered that she had an advanced stage of leukemia.  It had basically shown up symptomatically after it had done all the damage it could.  She died two weeks after going into the hospital.  For those who haven't lost a parent, it just simply can't be explained how that affects you.  My father and I have since gotten closer; we speak every day and visit each other regularly.  I imagine that's what Mom's last wish would have been, so our stronger bond exists as yet another testament of her life and values.

So that's my history, glossing over many of the great things that happened to me over the years and some of the bad.  I guess that it's pretty much representative of what happened to me.  I haven't had a great life and I haven't had a bad life, which I suppose is like most everyone else.