Taken at Lake Tahoe, December 2005

I grew up in Bethesda, Maryland, and also Virginia Beach, Virginia for a forgettable year, Naples, Italy for a year, and London for three years.  I went to Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, and the University of Maryland in College Park.

I worked in the Special Effects and Computer Design industry for two years in the 1980s (worked on Blade Runner, The Sword and the Sorcerer, and more) and then worked for the Mutual Broadcasting System for a year and a half as a Systems Engineer.  I then got a job with an electronics R&D firm where I stayed for 15 years (with a two year break doing computer-based training courses for air traffic controllers for an FAA subcontractor).

In early 2000, I was offered a job as Manager of IT for GayWired.com, so my husband and I moved to West Hollywood. Of course, the dot-com biz crashed immediately after we did this, so all those IPO dreams went up in smoke. Oh, well. I was then promoted to Vice-President of ECommerce, which was like becoming First Officer of the Titanic. It turned out that the company kept none of the commitments they made to me when I took the job, and then eliminated my division (and my job) on March 28th, 2002 for failing to meet revenue targets, which was impossible since they hadn’t met any of their resource commitments.

The best part of Los Angeles was meeting Tony Wisniewski and his wife June, and training at Tony’s gym, Ultra Body Fitness. Tony is a great guy, as well as Mr. World 2000 and Mr. Universe 2000, and one of the top Natural (i.e. non-steroid) bodybuilders in the world. If you ever want a great workout in Los Angeles, definitely give Tony a call.

I turned 40 on July 1st of 2001. In February of 2002, after 13 and a half years together, my lover Steve and I decided to go in different (and separate) directions. He moved at the end of April to an apartment in the North Hollywood Arts District.

I moved to near Monterey, California, and went back to school to get a Bachelors degree from California State University, Monterey Bay in TMAC - Telecommunications, Multimedia, and Applied Computing. I graduated in December of 2003 with a 4.00 GPA from CSUMB, while averaging 24 credits per semester (12 - 16 credits is considered “full-time”). I finished my Master's degree in Management and Information Technology (MSMIT), in May of 2006. I was accepted into the Ph.D. program of UC Santa Cruz in Computer Science in the Fall of 2006. (I guess this education thing is addictive!) While I hugely enjoyed being in the Ph.D. program (and did some cutting edge research in the process), trying to juggle the rocket pace of 10-week quarters at UCSC while also working full time, being involved in my Union, and helping take care of my elderly parents became too much, and I eventually had to withdraw.

	Taken at BbWorld '06, February 2006 in San Diego.

I was an Academic Systems Analyst/Programmer for California State University, Monterey Bay from August of 2005 to February of 2013. I supported a Learning Management System called “Blackboard,” later replaced with a much better Open Source program called “Moodle” (which we branded as iLearn), which are web-based systems that lets students retrieve their assignments and turn them in, take part in on-line discussions, get their grades, etc.

In February of 2013, I jumped back to private industry, and took a position with Apple, Inc. I'm now working for the biggest and best company in the world, on stuff that is unimaginably cool, with some of the best, brightest, and nicest people on the planet. I couldn’t be happier!

For more information about me and my interests, please choose one of the links on the left.

Thanks for visiting!