About Me

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I finally got around to creating an About Me page for my blog, which I've been meaning to do every since I read Jeff Atwood's commentary on it in his Thirteen Blog Cliches post.

My name is Russell Ball and I am 35 years old. I currently live in Kansas City, Kansas with my wife and six year old step-daughter. I've been a developer for almost eight years. I spent 2 years with the job title of architect, but recently switched jobs so I could be a developer again because I missed coding. I've mostly worked in Microsoft-dominant development environments, but I have become very interested lately in expanding my horizon to other tools, platforms, and languages. My blog subtitle comes from my Starbuck's caffeinated beverage of choice.

A Few Random Things You May Not Know About Me

1. I lived in the Dominican Republic for a year when I was 17 and still speak passable Spanish
2. I taught first grade for three years in an inner city school in Washington, DC. where 95% of student population qualified for a free lunch and 100% were minorities.
3. I own about 20 books on chess and used to play speed chess in the park in Dupont Circle almost every day when I lived in Washington, DC, but I haven't played in several years.
   
4. Besides trying to qualify for the 50 state club by running a marathon in each state, I have also run in a few ultra-marathons. I finished a fifty miler last year in just over nine hours and have been toying with the idea of running a hundred mile ultra-marathon some time in the next few years.
5. I've been sky-diving three times and would love to go again if I could somehow convince my wife to let me do it.
6. I have been in an earth quake, blizzard, hurricane, drive by shooting, and a coup d'etat.
7. I am a bit of a beer and coffee snob (the darker and stronger the better). I've even made a few batches of homebrew before with the help of my running/drinking buddy.
   

Favorite Books

1. Cider House Rules - John Irving
2. Skinny Dip - Carl Hiaasen
3. Anansi Boys - Neil Gaiman
4. Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry
5. Wizard of EarthSea - Ursula Le Guin
6. Angels and Demons - Dan Brown
7. Shantarum - Gregory David Roberts
8. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon
9. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
10. To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee