I am
President of Norbauer Inc
Norbauer Inc is an international Ruby on Rails consultancy, headquartered on Boston's North Shore, with 17 experienced Ruby developers (with development centers in New Delhi and New England,) all of whom passionately believe in beautiful code and simple solutions to technical problems. We are often available for hire.
Founder and partner at Lovetastic.com
The first online dating community for gay men looking for life-long love.
Technically an investor-funded web-2.0 start-up based in Lower Manhattan, but really just an earnest little labor of love with a mission to positively change the discourse about same-sex relationships in America.
Creator of RubyRags
A fun project to improve the cohesiveness the Ruby community and to pimp its culture through snarky Ruby and Ruby on Rails t-shirts.
A writer
As a regular contributor at 43folders, a contributor to Vitamin Magazine, and as a blogger at my own sites NotRocketSurgery and RubyJudo.
I have been
On the staff of a British Member of Parliament
Where I handled all foreign affairs work, wrote the odd speech, got to sit in on briefings with presidents and prime ministers, spent late nights reading at the London School of Economics, and had Saturday afternoon tea far too often at the Wolseley.
A researcher at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ("the CDC")
Where my research was the first to empirically show a link between sleep deprivation and impulsive decision-making. My work has been published in a number of academic journals.
A neurological test administrator at a psychiatric hopsital
Where I actually spent part of my time helping to dissect dead human brains at neuropathological autopsies.
A technical editor and developer of internal software for a NASA contractor (Titan at the time, now L3 Communications)
Where I grappled the joyless arts of enterprise-speak and ASP/VBscript programming.
A network engineering technician at a NASA software facility
Where I made sure our government officials had 24/7 access to Solitaire and Minesweeper.
Recipient of numerous fancy-shmancy awards for writing
Including being named one of a handful of national finalists for Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel's Prize in Ethics.
A pedant of some distinction
- named member of the all-USA college academic team by USA Today
(the only institution in America with less journalistic credibility than Stone Phillips) - named "outstanding graduate" in my class by both my entire university's honors program and my own academic department.
(probably because I'm tall and given to wearing white linen suits) - graduated summa cum laude and phi beta kappa (sic semper tyrannis) with two degrees from West Virginia University: psychology and French.
(Yes, I'm from West Virginia. I'm actually chawing on a reed of hay as we speak.)