I grew up in western Tennessee and eastern Arkansas and then came to Atlanta, Georgia for college. I started working in the IT industry in my second year and have remained in both IT and the Atlanta area. Friends got me active in outdoor things like cycling (road and mountain) and later backpacking (mostly in northern Georgia). I met Cindy at a wilderness survival course, completely fell in love, and married her a couple of years later.

I worked at Georgia State as a programmer for their network engineers and at Georgia Tech as a back-end application developer (Python, PostgreSQL, etc), but all that's coming to a close after 30 years. Cindy and I still enjoy weekend hikes once a month or so during the warmer seasons. She's good at getting me off the couch, for which I am grateful.

I discovered photography about 15 years ago. I now do portrait, head-shot, and event work. I've added an artistic side to my technical skills, and it's great! I enjoy the "time machine" aspect of event photography, the way it lets me capture relationships in a little time capsule, images that evoke the feelings of those relationships when absent from the friends and family we love.

What else ... I enjoy dabbling in music, but I've never gotten serious with it. Cindy and I keep thinking of downsizing from our palatial 11,000 square foot home to something a little smaller. (That's not a typo.) I sometimes grow a beard starting in December, die it a brilliant green for March, and then shave it in April before the weather warms up. We baldies are entitled to a little fun with hair once in a while. :-)

I keep thinking that I'll get back into hobbyist electronics (SoCs, IoT, etc.) one of these days, but that doesn't fit my life right now. I think of it the way other guys might think of fly fishing: something fun to keep busy with after retirement. We'll see.