tom - ProfilesArchive

About Me

Who is Gazpacho? I was born in Houston, Texas in 1970. My family moved to Illinois when I was 2 years old. I have lived there ever since.

I am a computer professional with over 14 years of experience. Currently, I work as software engineer for a contractor to Express Scripts . I am responsible for designing, coding, testing, documenting and maintaining software. If you want to know more about my professional credentials, please check out my resume .

I have a twin brother, Kevin

I experiment with new recipes , write software and play computer games to relieve stress.

I am proud to have done my part to support open source software since I picked up my first Linux distribution, Slackware, over ten years ago.

I am a hacker . If you think hacking involves breaking into other people's computers, you are wrong. Those punks are called crackers.

My gazpacho.net blog is hosted by DreamHost . I use Movable Type to publish and maintain blog entries.

I go to science fiction and gaming conventions. Sadly, some buddies I only see a few times a year at cons. I enjoy live action role playing with the BYOV guys and the SLUGS crew .

My Interests

ada, ajax, archon , awk, baths, battlefield 2, billiards, biting, board games, bonfires, books, boxing, c. s. lewis, c/c++, camping, candles, canoeing, cheese, chess, chili, computers, conventions, cooking, crock pot, crock pot cooking, css, d20 , deviled eggs, diecon , douglas adams, firefox , flirting, freeborn, funny shaped dice, games, gaming, gencon , guitar, horror fiction, html, hugging. java, javascript, kissing, laughing, lex, linux, lisp, live action roleplaying, lord of the rings, math, metal, metal gear solid, monty python, munchkin , nerds, open source, operating systems, opportunity, pacman, pascal, perl, php, pirates, pizza, president george w. bush, programming languages, qdoba , ray bradbury , recipes, red dwarf, robert heinlein, robots, rock, role playing, role-playing conventions, sci-fi, science fiction, science fiction conventions, sed, settlers of cataan, shell scripting, showers, sleeping, soap, spycraft, sql, st. louis, star trek, star wars, tea, the donald , toast, tolkien, trumpet, unix, vampire, vanilla, vi, video games, web services, werewolf, xml, xsl, yacc

I'd like to meet:

The Theremin is a musical instrument that blows my mind. Check out this video.

Music:

Alice In Chains, Black Label Society, Johnny Cash, Clutch, Andrae Crouch, Daft Punk, DeGarmo & Key, Bob Dylan, Megadeth, Metallica, Nirvanna, Primus, Rob Zombie, Sister Machine Gun, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Wierd Al Yankovic

Movies:

Tron , Aliens , Hackers , Oh Brother Where Art Thou , Evil Dead 2 , The Crow , The Ring , Tommy Boy , Hellraiser , Patriot Games , The Cable Guy

Television:

CSI, Iron Chef, The Apprentice, Star Trek DS9, Red Dwarf, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

Books:

Golden Apples of the Sun , Something Wicked This Way Comes , The Hobbit , The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , The Trial , Chess for Beginners , You Gotta Have the Want To

Heroes:

President George W. Bush , Our Troops , Abraham Lincoln , President Ronald Reagan , Nikola Tesla , Claude Shannon , Linus Torvalds , Ray Bradbury , Rev. Allan C Oggs Sr. , Laura Ingraham , Sean Hannity

My Blog

Read a Book

Hey Nick, it was great seeing ya at DieCon. Congrats on fatherhood. Dis onez fo' you, know what I'm sayin!WARNING: Bad language and biting social satire ...
Posted by tom on Mon, 02 Jun 2008 07:19:00 PST

The Great Divorce

During my trip I finally read C. S. Lewis' The Great Divorce. Although he is better known for the Narnia series, it is considered one of his better books. He considers the fact that we know relatively...
Posted by tom on Wed, 14 May 2008 06:47:00 PST

JavaOne 2008 Report, Part 4: Friday

I woke up Friday and decided to skip the final keynote address and remaining sessions. I had a raging headache and was anxious to get home. I did a little shopping for Mother's Day. Then I took the su...
Posted by tom on Mon, 12 May 2008 08:04:00 PST

JavaOne 2008 Report, Part 3: Thursday

Well folks, this is gonna be a short entry. Tomorrow is the last day of JavaOne. I need to pack up all of my stuff and swag in order to be check out tomorrow.I dug the session on Nimbus. Vector-based ...
Posted by tom on Mon, 12 May 2008 08:02:00 PST

JavaOne 2008 Report, Part 2: Wednesday

Ok, I just got back from the Sun Developer Network Party. I am going to make this short. My plan is to revisit these blog entries once Sun releases the videos and slides from the JavaOne sessions in t...
Posted by tom on Mon, 12 May 2008 08:00:00 PST

JavaOne 2008 Report, Part 1: Tuesday

I made the trip out to San Francisco for JavaOne. The first day kicked off with a speech entitled Java + You. I came in late because, well, I had an issue finding the right conference center.. not Mos...
Posted by tom on Mon, 12 May 2008 07:58:00 PST

Groovy Credit Card Validation

Back in March I attended a software conference hosted in St. Louis called No Fluff, Just Stuff. The lectures introduced me to some cool new technology. It was small and intimate. I had an opportunity ...
Posted by tom on Fri, 02 May 2008 07:49:00 PST

Wish Your Were Here

Carroll David Conder 1950-2006...
Posted by tom on Thu, 21 Feb 2008 08:06:00 PST

Love Note

Do you like me?[ ] Yes[ ] NoHappy Valentine's Day, friends!
Posted by tom on Fri, 15 Feb 2008 05:07:00 PST

War Saves Lives

A man used the medic training he learned in America's Army -- a video game the Army gives away as a promotional item -- to save a life.It is the same game that the Iraq Veterans Against the War protes...
Posted by tom on Sat, 19 Jan 2008 08:02:00 PST