About Me

The TL;DR Version

I'm a software engineer, soccer fan, political junkie, and lover of all nerdery. Most of my professional career has been spent as a LOB developer in the .NET world and I've always been a bit of an ALT.NET guy. It's been great to see the explosion of OSS projects in the .NET space over the last few years and I'm hoping to do more to contribute now that I'm working in the community.

What I'm Doing (aka What is a "Language Evangelist"?!)

Currently I'm employed as a Language Evangelist at DataStax. If you're wondering what exactly that means, you're not the only one. Rather than trying to explain what I do (since that's constantly changing and evolving), perhaps it's better to explain what I hope to accomplish.

My goal is to learn as much as possible about Apache Cassandra and in the process, help others (maybe with a background similar to mine) learn about it as well. Figuring out how C* fits into the .NET space is just one of many challenges I'm hoping to explore. After spending many years being "locked away" as a behind-the-scenes developer, being in a more public-facing role is both intimidating and exciting. I feel like I'm playing catch-up with a lot of people smarter than I am, but I love to learn.

Life Outside of Tech

Ohio State vs. Michigan, the 2013 Edition
One of the interesting things when your friends start having kids? Introducing yet another generation to the rivalry. In fairness, he's probably more interested in the giraffe.

I'm a recent transplant to Denver, CO by way of Cincinnati, OH. (No, I didn't come for the pot.) I'm a huge USMNT and Columbus Crew fan and tend to disappear every four years when the World Cup comes around. As a bit of a political and current events junkie, I treat Presidential election days like many people treat Christmas. And I can also make a mean key lime pie martini (a skill I learned from a few years experience as a bartender during my misspent youth).