Vocation

Currently employed as a Systems Librarian at Laurentian University. I love the academic freedom and the opportunity to directly help students. And the fact that I get to use Perl to help me solve problems on a regular basis is pretty nice :)

Publications

I've contributed to a couple of books in my lifetime:

• Apache Derby: Off to the Races as a primary author of the Perl DBI, PHP, and Python chapters on how to create/read/update/delete data in an Apache Derby database.
• DB2: The Complete Reference. (I'm sure the five-star ratings came from application developers, while the zero-star ratings were for other parts of the book... heh.)

Avocations

• Running and biking. Sometimes they mix nicely. In 2004 I biked from Toronto to Montreal (600 km) over the course of six days.
• Cat worship. My cat "Spook" keeps life around the house very interesting. Coming from a dog person like me, that's high praise for this cat.
• Motorcycles. Well, I've only had two in the course of five years -- but it's a great way to travel. I wish more people would ride bikes and learn to be super-defensive and hyper-alert drivers... it would save gas and cut down on accidents.
• Bleeding. Okay, I donate blood regularly, but two out of the last three times my blood didn't quite clot properly after they pulled out the needle. There's nothing like seeing someone's eyes widen in horror as you drink your juice and notice that they're staring in disbelief at a puddle of blood on the floor that's run down your arm and across your pants. Fun stuff!