Welcome!
This is my personal blog, an amalgam of different content, subjects, and things, which may not necessarily have any overarching “theme,” other than it being a collection of writings by me. So expect a little bit of everything.
As for who I am, well, there are a lot of different ways to answer that question. Most importantly right now I’m the father of two little people, Sofia (age 4) and Evan (age 3), who consume an awful lot of my time, but sure are fun to have around. I suspect there will be more on them later.
I’m currently working at Next IT in Spokane, WA as a “Solutions Engineer,” which is funny given that I am no “real” engineer, and all of my friends from Harvey Mudd (who were real engineers) know that I started life as a chemist. The job is actually technical sales support for the company, though I try to push into Product Marketing as much as possible. (Next IT develops Natural Language Processing technologies which are used to power enterprise-class customer service and customer relationship management conversational interfaces, often in the form of Virtual Assistants on public-facing websites. See Jenn at alaskaair.com and Alex at continental.com for examples). The technology and work are very interesting, though it’s about the only technology-driven software start-up in the area, which is an interesting position to be in.
My other main activity is being the “Diaper King Pin,” as I like to style it. My very talented wife, Salina, and I run our own cloth diaper retail business, Diaper Lab. We have a store in Somerville, Massachusetts (adjacent to Boston and Cambridge), but recently moved to Spokane, Washignton, where there are grandparents for the small ones close at hand (which was sorely missing in Boston). So we run the business remotely, Salina focusing on most of the diapering parts (inventory, customer service, product & pricing) , while I do most of the web, design, and financial stuff.
The web (and I guess the financial to a lesser extent) is really my professional background. I worked for twelve years, prior to returning west, in a variety of positions within Harvard’s principal administrative IT department, typically at the interface between those who implemented technology and those who relied on it for their particular function. Lots of servers, databases, ERP systems, and websites (you can read my resume for the unabridged version) .
Outside of the usual family and career…well there are a number of interests, though most are getting a rest, unless I’m able to tie them in directly to the family and career parts. But so it goes. Travel is probably the biggest “deferred interest” item. It’s much easier to pick up and go when it’s only you (I once bought a ticket to Italy at lunch, went home to pack in the afternoon, and left that evening), but a little bit more effort—not to say expense—when it’s four people, two of whom think that unpacking bags is done before you leave. But I know we’ll get back to it, and it will become an exciting part of our lives. Hiking, and my particular desire for winter hiking, is also awaiting a bit more time, which again will start to be easier as everyone gets a bit older (well, except for me I guess). My other long-standing interest is photography, which I’ve luckily been able to continue pursuing, though I spend a lot more time practicing portraits and product shots, and a lot less on landscape and travel scenes.
And I once had a passion for writing. There was a ten-year period when I was a very diligent journal writer, even managing to go over a year without missing a day of writing, and did a bit of other writing too. But it too became a luxury from the days when I had time. So returning to this blog is exciting, even though it is a very different manner of writing than the past. Better, though, I hope; a little less self-indulgent, a bit more focused. Probably not as voluminous, but that is as often as not a good thing.
More? Well, that’s what this is for. Or get in touch with me. I’m here.
-Ryan