Born in New England, as a Navy brat I traveled all over the NorthEast before settling in the California East Bay for 6 years, followed by planting deep roots in the city of my collegiate alma mater: The beach town of Santa Cruz, of all places. But Navy brats don't usually have hometowns per se, so I get to pick mine and I choose the 'Cruz. Make of that what you will.

A nerd of long-standing, I took my first computer programming class on a Commodore Pet (2K of RAM!) in 1978 and have never looked back. I have built a solid, creditable career as a technical writer at companies large and small, from start-ups you've never heard of to places like Cisco and Hewlett-Packard. And at the same time I've been putting forth my opinions every place I can get an audience, from the letters columns of Newsweek, various newspapers, and NPR, to online places like Salon.com and on into my own blogs. Not forgetting my lengthy side-career of posting tech reviews, news pieces, and opinions at the wonderful tech site Gear Diary (geardiary.com).

I have been wanting to write fiction for years, and used the prod of National Novel Writing Month to create my first effort, completed a follow-up mystery story with the same characters, and a short creepy SF story. I'm currently working on another follow-up novel set in Roman times, as well as an urban fantasy/science fiction novel and collecting some of my better tech posts into a collection I'm calling Technobabble. Watch this space for more!