Greetings and salutations. My name is Douglas and I am in my mid-40s, married with three children, and currently reside near Grand Rapids, Michigan. I have called Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Michigan, Texas and Oregon my home at points in my life. I am a toddler wrangler and diaper technician (a.k.a.: stay at home dad), a fan of all things tech, self-taught computer programmer, an amateur photographer, fanatic about sports, and a gamer. I am a super ultra lefty, an ally to the LGBTQ+ community, and a supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement. I am also an advocate of the Personal Web (Web 1.0).

I have been using the Information Super Highway (laser sounds intensify!) in one form or another since 1996. After learning basic HTML, I created personal websites on Geocities, Angelfire, and Tripod. I feel that those were the best days of the internet, before the corporate take over.

I got a late start in life with computers. My parents didn’t own a computer until I was already in my early 20s. My first taste of programming was learning to use Javascript with HTML on my Sega Dreamcast’s browser back in 1999. From there, I taught myself Perl and PHP. Once I had my hands on a computer, I began to learn languages like C, C++, C#, R, Java, Visual BASIC, and probably a few more I can’t remember right now.

Although I don’t get to play as much as I used to, I still consider myself a gamer. I have owned almost every mainstream game console to come out since the Atari 2600. I have owned – in addition to said Atari – the Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, Game Boy, Nintendo 64, PlayStation, Game Boy Color, Sega Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo 3DS, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X, and the PlayStation 5.

My favorite genres are strategy, role-playing, simulation, and sports.