I enjoy spending time with my family skiing, hiking and traveling, or just watching movies. My interests include investing, computers and how the universe works. I started using computers in 1981, and love using them to create things and share ideas over the Internet. I'm your basic 'blue jeans and T-shirt' kind of guy, and have a collection of Hard Rock Cafe shirts from around the world. I appreciate the simple things in life and have a knack for finding humor in everyday situations.

I grew up in Houston, Texas and like to visit from time to time. I attended Texas A&M University where I majored in Computer Science and moved to Dallas where I started my first job at Texas Instruments.

I met Kate in 2001 and we got married in 2003. In 2006, we moved to Colorado Springs and started a family. We love the weather in Colorado. With low humidity, it doesn't really get too hot or too cold most of the year.

We enjoy traveling and winter sports. We had a fantastic vacation to Europe in 2018 and went to see friends in Madrid, Spain, and also visited Barcelona, Italy, London and Paris. Here's a video with highlights of our trip:

I spent the majority of my IT career as a system administrator specializing in UNIX architecture, clustering and disaster recovery. I was a technical product manager for a few years where I was able to hone my presentation skills. I like to take complex topics and make them easy for anyone to understand. I am interested in investing and became an investment advisor and broker for a short period, passing my series 7 and 66 exams. I am now a software developer.

I enjoy programming and was able to combine my passion for computers and investing to create Portfolio Toolbox. It is a web site dedicated to sharing my investing journey and some tools and ideas that I use to help me invest.

I have also written a Javascript slide show program called JSviewer, though it is a little bit dated using today's standards. I even built a Javascript lottery number generator below to help you pick your numbers. For those of you that are good at math, you'll discover that winning the lottery is much harder than it sounds.

The most extreme thing that I have done is skydiving. There's nothing quite like jumping out of a perfectly good airplane to give you a new perspective on life. Seeing the curvature of the Earth from 12,000 feet is an awesome sight. My first jump was an Accelerated Free Fall (AFF). It is fairly intense for a first jump and I now recommend that new people go tandem on their first jump.

I like hiking, skiing, bicycling and Frisbee™. I starting playing Frisbee with my brother as a kid and now play Frisbee with my own kids. I also like doing things indoors like bowling, billiards and watching movies. Here's a video of me skiing one of my favorite runs at Breckenridge:

Photography is another hobby of mine. I have so many pictures and I need to take some time to make them available online.

Nuclear War™ is one of my favorite card games that I like to play with my friends. I started playing Nuke War while I lived in the dorms in college. It was originally designed by Doug Malewicki during the Cold War in 1965. The object of the game is to try to be the last country standing with at least 1 million people. It has been updated a few times and is a pretty fun to play. It is available from Flying Buffalo, Inc. More often than not, there is no winner because everyone dies in a nuclear war.

My favorite foods are Italian and Chinese, along with steaks, shrimp, crab & burgers and I like cooking from time to time.

I have been an avid music fan since I was a kid. While at Texas A&M, I was a DJ for the cable radio station KANM. My show was called Spam-o-Rama and I played classic rock music. My favorite types of music are 80's retro, classic rock and alternative music. Some of my favorite artists and movies are:

• Artists: AC/DC, Aerosmith, The Beatles, Bon Jovi, Carrie Underwood, The Cult, Billy Idol, Garth Brooks, Led Zeppelin, Metallica, Michael Jackson, OneRepublic, Pat Benetar, Prince, Pink Floyd, The Police, The Rolling Stones, Sting, Taylor Swift, Trace Adkins, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, U2
• Movies: Addams Family, Arthur, Beauty and the Beast (Disney), The Fugitive, Heavy Metal, Highlander, The Incredibles, Lord of the Rings, Marvel Movies, The Matrix, Pulp Fiction, Robin Hood, Star Wars, Titanic, Waterworld