Welcome to my little corner of the net. Some of the things you'll find around
here will quite likely be of no interest to anyone but me, but you're more
then welcome to poke around.
History
Employ
Since I graduated in 1996 and moved to Ottawa I've held down a couple
different jobs in the high tech sector here:
- BNR / Northern Telecom / Nortel / Nortel Networks
- I worked for the Big Nerd Ranch for 3 years in one of the old
DMS telephony groups. My primary job was working on an internal tool for
managing database schema changes for the DMS.
- CrossKeys Systems / Orchestream
- At CrossKeys I worked on the 3.0 and 4.0 releases of Resolve,
their network service & performance monitoring suite.
- Catena Networks
- Most recently I spent 21 months on contract with Catena Networks
working on the 1.0 and 2.0 versions of their EMS (Element Management System).
As a result of turning contractor nearly 2 years ago now, I now have / am my own
company: mKnife Consulting Inc. If you're
interested, you can find my resume here in pdf format.
Leisure
Other then work (actually not-work currently), I have a couple of distractions
that take up my time.
- Ultimate
- Sometimes refered to as "Cultimate" or "That silly game with
a frisbee," Ultimate is a great game. I captain The U-Files,
one of the over 350 teams that play in the Ottawa-Carleton
Ultimate Association, the largest Ultimate league in the world. I also
volunteer my time as one of their webmonkeys.
- Bike
- Ottawa has a great network of
bike paths
that run all around this fair city.
- Computers
- Being a geek of sorts, I do tend to spend a fair amount of time in front of
a computer, much to my girlfriend's chagrin. I'm either working as part-time
webmaster for the OCUA website, doing some
surfing, or playing one of my current favorite games:
- Role-Playing Games
- Another one of those geeky activities, I'm currently involved in is a
3ed D&D
campaign with 5 of my friends. I'm playing a Barbarian / Fighter named Guerin
who loves to cleave things with his greatsword.
- Not so much role-playing in the strictest sence, but there's a small group
of us who play Necromunda,
a table-top combat / strategy game using miniatures.
- TV
- Ah yes, the boob-tube. The source of all 21st century culture. And what
fun culture it provides:
- Sports Watch
- My girlfriend Heather and I can't get enough of the NFL
when it's in-season. Sunday's will often find us glued to the couch from 11:00am, to
catch Boomer and the boys on ESPN's Sunday Countdown,
and we're usually there till the end of the late game. I don't know if you could say that
either of us have an absolute favorite team, we just like seeing a good game or two
every weekend.
- It's probably my father's fault, being an alum and all, but I always try to see as many
Duke Blue Devils men's basketball games as I can.
Unfortunately I usually only get to watch a handful a season as we can't get ESPN up here
in Canada...
- A group of friends and I have been partaking of Ottawa Senators
half-season tickets for the past couple of years. Unfortunately the circle of friends has been
getting smaller and smaller, and the tickets have been getting more and more expensive (and the
hockey has been getting a bit boring) so we may not be renewing for the 2002-03 season.
Hmm, looks like I've got a lot of stuff to take up what little free time I have...
Tunes
I have a moderately large collection of CDs, though the rate at which my collection
has been expanding lately is significantly less then what it used to be. (And no,
it's not because I'm Napstering all my new music now.) Check out my rather
disparate taste in music.
Instrumental
I used to play violin, bass, and guitar. Now most of them just sit around in
their cases in the corner of my office collecting dust. Everyone once in a while
one of them will see the light of day. If you're curious, here's
my gear.
