About Me

Hi, I’m Colin. I haven’t written much here recently, but maybe soon.

I do software stuff for work, but I don’t want to talk about that here. I have a different blog for that.

I’m a DC native. Or rather, a DC metro area native. I was raised in the Maryland suburbs, went off to New England for college, and came back to live in the Virginia suburbs. I finally moved downtown a year ago, and wish I’d done it sooner.

I like it here. I’ve adapted to it. I’ve got all my favorite haunts - restaurants, parks, museums, nightclubs. I’ve mostly managed to avoid the sucky parts, which are really only traffic, July, August, and government contracting. (Commuting here is like the weather in other places - it’s the default topic for complete strangers forced into a conversation.) I like traveling and exploring other cities, but I don’t think there’s anywhere else I’d rather live. Maybe London.

My mom’s from England, and I have a ton of relatives over there. My girlfriend grew up there, so that wouldn’t be a hard sell, either. I love London for the sheer physical density of it and the depth of history. You know how used book stores have this feel to them? There’s so much stuff packed into such a tiny space, and there’s so much variety. Your Barnes & Noble has about six months worth of new books and a handful of classic best-sellers. Used books stores accrete decades worth of books spread across a wide range of topics. London is like that. New and old rub shoulders constantly and occasionally get into fights.

I’m an old goth-industrial kid. I don’t get out to clubs much anymore, but I still self-identify with that crowd. Oddly, I think it’s really more a matter of philosophical bent and sense of humor than the music itself. It’s like blues for suburban white kids. It’s a culture that says you don’t have to be happy all the time, but sometimes you just gotta laugh.

I’m not musical myself. I’ve played a number of instruments over the years, but I’ve never had the dedication to really get good at any of them. Noodling around is kinda fun and relaxing. Being good enough to perform would be nice, but that’s really a lot of work.

I bike a fair amount. Not in a competitive sporting kinda way, but in a getting from point A to point B kinda way. It’s turned out to be a reasonably fast and low-stress way of getting to work. It’s also a good way of getting around a city that has a mostly temperate climate and atrocious traffic. I’m not much of a one for sports, though I’ve fairly recently developed an appreciation for rugby. There’s no really easy way to watch that regularly, though.

I don’t really have any expensive hobbies, though I do like to travel. It’s not all that expensive since I mostly stay with friends, and my idea of a good time is wandering around a city and trying out coffee shops and dive-y little ethnic restaurants. I don’t go for the flashy, touristy things. I’m much more interested in the little ways that daily life is different.

I read a fair amount. That’s pretty much what I do for entertainment. I’ll go to a movie or watch TV with friends maybe once a week. I usually have bookmarks in one novel and a couple of non-fiction books at any given time. Non-fiction is mostly popular history, economics or sociology. It all boils down to figuring out how the world works, especially the people part of it. I used to read a ton of science fiction, but now it’s mostly historical fiction, or sometimes just classics.

Part of why I’m writing this is to balance that out. I take in all this information, but I don’t do anything with it. I don’t use it or share it or debate it. Seems kinda pointless. Also kinda dumb, since I actually like talking to people. It also makes me kind of a bad friend. Everyone else seems to be blogging away like mad. I get to look in on their lives, and to learn from them. It keeps them an active part of my world. But I don’t give much back. I’m afraid the memories they have of me will fade out.

The other part of why I’m writing this is for practice, for work. More and more, my job is about communicating, rather than just writing code. Figuring out what to do and who should do it is most of the battle. I have to work with other people and communicate with them effectively to get things done. I have to distill my experience and intuition into clear explanations. I have to document and share hard-won knowledge, if only so I don’t have to repeat the experience. I have to get inside the heads of the people who are going to use my software, and see how their world works and what’s relevant to them.

If you want to get in touch, email me. You know my name and the domain for this site; you can guess the address.