I’m a husband, a father of two, and a casual martial artist. I’ve been writing software since late high school (around 2002). It wasn’t my first career choice though; I originally wanted to become a police officer, took Criminology at university, and achieved mediocre grades. I graduated and went to work in loss prevention at grocery stores around Ottawa, a group home for children, and then finally as a labourer for an old Italian bricklayer. Two years in, both hands numbing from carpal tunnel syndrome, and I didn’t have a clue where this was all leading. I don’t remember the exact moment, but I decided to revisit computer programming and re-enrolled in university for a computer science degree.
As fate would have it, I made some awesome friends who were in similar situations. All of us were taking a second cut at university which meant we all had the same goal of getting our degrees (and skipping the university social life). We went through the trenches together over the course of three years, and while we all ended up going different directions after university, I have fond memories of staying up late at night and waking up early in the morning building software together.
Now, I’m a Java developer improving my system administration skills on an as needed basis. I’m moving into an architectural role, and I thought that maybe this blog would be a way I could stay up on industry trends and keep my programming skills sharp. Let’s see!