Yes, my beard and I have an on again off again affair.

I grew up in Medfield, Massachusetts. I still miss New England. I will most probably end up there in the end.

Spent the last three years of the nineteen seventies living in Ireland. Just hours away from the punk explosion and I missed it. I was young, dweebie and not well connected to the underground media. I still miss Ireland. I will most probably end up there in the end.

Too many years of school at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

I used to program Telix for Windows, in North Carolina. I eventually got it in my head that it was time to move on. I moved on.

To California. I was too poor and had to live in the yucky flat parts of the Silicon Valley. But I had good friends. Some of whom I even got to see. I was working for Realtime Performance Inc. But they never asked me to do the job that they told me I'd be doing when they hired me. When they got intollerable and promised to let me do work even further removed from that for which I took the job and even more career limiting, I quit. I was a very very unhappy Gruhn. I spent a few months playing Diablo. By the end of this time, friends were saying that I seemed to be happier than they had seen me in many years.

So there you go, play Diablo, it is good for your health. Or maybe quitting your job is. Or, perhaps the parallel can be drawn with the situation of a coworker of mine - get out of a bad situation, it is good for your health.

These days I am living in Scottsdale, Arizona. When I would ride in to work in the morning, I'd scare lizards out from under bushes. It is pretty darned hot and dry here. Eventually it will get chilly and I'll have to spend an entire Saturday searching my room for my jacket.

I was programming accounting software for legal offices for Omega Legal Systems. Using Delphi and a dinosaur called "M" or "MUMPS". Lucky for me, I didn't have to do much M stuff. Until we get this version out the door, I'm pretty much working on debugging GUI code left by my infamous predecessor*. Company is pretty cool. They let me keep kinda wacko hours. Not as wacko as deltaComm was willing to put up with, but that company was rare that way.

* Dig... (pseudo-code because I forget the dialect)

   function dialogInputFooData(params)
   var
      b1 : TButton;
      b2 : TButton;
      e1 : TEdit;
      enabled : boolean;
      disabled : boolean;
      
   begin
      /* some stuff */
      if b1.enabled then
         begin
	     enabled := true;
	     disabled := false;
	     end;
      /* other stuff */
   end;

I quit Omega. Now I'm going to school. Trying to get creative again. "Find myself". That sort of thing. I think I want to teach.

Worked reception and some archie stuff at Reece Angell Rowe Architects for five years there. Learned some stuff. Made little money. Felt pretty OK with myself.

Got an Associates of Applied Science (or something that can be TLAed as AAS) in Architectural Technology. Took a lot of classes copying drawings into AutoCAD. Got to help classmates a lot. There's that teaching thing, oo rah. Oh yeah, Honors Student, Phi Theta Kappa and a 4.0. There was a moment's pride when they told the Highest Distinction kids to stand up and in this gym packed to the gills with people there's ten of us standing.

Couple months later I picked up my BS in CS (minor in Architecture) from RPI. Thanks, Decoy. Now all I have to do is find some time to swing by the alumni office and beat somebody senseless with my diploma so maybe they'll recognize my elevated status. Can't tell you how many times I've tried to get them through the web or email. Hm... senseless would be bad. I probably don't know their password. I'll need them conscious. Guess I'll have to try the old "be nice and smile a lot" approach.

I don't know that I've "ended up" in New England, but I am back home now. Like it. Wish the politics weren't so incompatible with mine. But everywhere is like that so what's a kid to do, eh?

I work in the Big City now like a real grown up. I spend far too much time commuting, like a real moron. Soon as I win the lottery, I'm buying a place on Comm. Ave. Word. ... AND ...

I'm in school again. Keep doing that, must like it.

Next year I expect to get a Discussion Group (TA type gig). Looking forward to that. Should be interesting and hard. Good for me. Been a while since I've actually had a class, as opposed to just lecturing stuff. And this will be a discussion group of a subject without hard answers and right ways. There is some relatively well defined "do it this way," "strive for that," type material but in the end "every opinion, no matter how lame, is valid." I've subbed the class a few times already and my biggest challenge and hope will be to get the students to... Discuss. After that, thinking would be good. Long ways off yet. It'll be here all too soon.

Do tutoring at school. Math/CAD/Structures for the most part. Some InDesign. The walk-in sessions for Structures are the best (in one way). Table full of students all with different questions, all at different parts of the homework, all hoping for help RIGHT NOW. One-on-one sessions with a competent motivated student are best in a different way.

Should graduate 2013, but who ever graduates on time?

I like my Volvo, but am probably running the poor thing into the ground. No idea what to get next. The newer Volvos are ugly and don't appear to have the seating stance I like about the 740 thru S70 class models. That is, left over from the boxy era. Considering winning lottery (yes, again) and just getting a nice Bentley touring car.

Haven't taken a good picture in years. Sad. Doing some nice work in other media.