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Here's a quick synopsis since FVS: I wrote the original version of this to reconnect with Ken Chow (who I just saw in SF in May), so don't think I'm crazy, and wrote it all "just for you" There are plenty of better reasons to think I'm crazy :)

  • 1985-86 St. Bees, UK -- exchange student
  • 86-89 UT Austin majored in PoliSci minored in Lacrosse, failed out in 3 years
  • 89-96 Special Ed. teacher, varying populations. I started off with emotionally disturbed and ended with severe Autsitic
  • 1994 left Austin (which I loved) and moved to Boston with/for live-in gf of 4 years. Thus we split a year later.

At that age I was just TERRIBLE at being alone, so jumped into another relationship immediately.

In 1996, I thought I might get married and start a family, and (I felt) I could not provide for a family in the way I thought I should on a Sp.Ed. teachers salary, so I went back to school. Of course the relationship that I thought was leading to marriage immediately fell apart. I had moved in with my boss, and then to avoid allegations of impropriety, she took another job. It turned out that without work we had nothing in common. I was shocked to find out there was that much karma left in the world (but that's another story). Still, I finished up a degree in computer science, and met my current wife while in school, so no regrets. I now write software for a living.

1996-99 UMass Boston BSCS
1999-2002 Anyday.com, acquired by Palm Inc
2002-now http://www.mghihp.edu.

I got married in October 2001, and we bought a house in Beverly. MA in 2003, and have been there ever since. My wife is also a computer type -- she's the head DBA for Helium.com (http://www.helium.com).

I'm deliberately working in a low stress job right now. Palm was awesome, but when it all fell apart (Palm laid off the entire Boston office in 2002) I started wondering if perhaps I could be more satisfied with less "killing." Academia is a good place for me right now. I've staffed my department with my best friends, and I've got a real sinecure. Recently however, I've been getting frustrated at the fact that I'm never challenged to be at my best. I'm thinking about throwing away the cushy position because sometimes it's nice to have someone ask me to be as smart as I possibly can be.

I celebrated my 40th birthday last October -- it was pretty awesome. The theme was 1967 and everyone came in costume, including the band (you can see some pictures in my photo album on facebook). I came as Elvis, and sang 2 numbers with band. I'm pretty pleased to be 40. As I said at the party -- I'm looking forward to the next 3rd of my life.

We just bought a new house, still in Beverly. It's designed to be our party house. It's got a pool and a bar and a fireplace and all sorts of other cool features. We're not planning on having any kids so we needed a house that we could do a lot of entertaining in. One of the things that has kept us in Boston is that we have a large group of friends close to our age who are single and also don't have kids -- but they all live in the City, so we need a way to lure them out.

My brother just moved to Denver from Dallas, so I'm letting him be the advanced scout for the large contingent that is there. I'm still in touch with Chad Harrison regularly and Lawrence occasionally. I just saw Ken Chow as I said, and I saw Darin Hart and Drew Thatcher at Jeremy's wedding).

So that's a good starting point I think. You don't have to write back nearly as much -- I tend to be enamored of my own words. I welcome emails from old friends. Send to f i s h d a n @ y a h o o . c o m

Dan

Comments

Unknown said…
Great story, Dan! And you picked the right woman. Eleanor is cool.
5:07 AM
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