About Me

I grew up in Colorado as a typical kid in a middle-class family in the 80’s. Well, “typical” until I broke my neck in a car accident at age 14 in 1988. My level of injury is C5 and “complete” meaning “completely fucked”: the paralysis is permanent and not going to get better. Over the course of three months at Craig Hospital in Englewood, Colorado, I learned how to live in my new body and that my life was not in fact over. I returned home to find my friends had moved on and I started high school as one of three students in wheelchairs and the only one able to handle normal courses. Free of social distraction, I focused on my classwork and did very well.

I continued my academic success in college. I met my future wife at her job in the mall while shopping for a puzzle. We got married a couple of years later and lived in student housing until I finished my degree. I decided to go to graduate school to pursue a PhD in archaeology and so we moved down to Arizona. Graduate school was tough but really amazing as well.

It was the late 90’s and the Internet was still young, but the popularity of websites was accelerating rapidly. I was fascinated by this new medium and taught myself how to build web pages using html. There were very few web developers around at the time so I was able to find a lot of freelance work on campus. I built course websites for different professors and my own online course that I taught during Summer Session and via correspondence year round.

One of the departments that I was doing work for eventually offered me a full time position and I jumped at the chance. I ended up leaving the archaeology program before finishing my PhD, although I did get my Master’s degree. There just aren’t many jobs in archaeology, especially for someone that can’t really do fieldwork. A full time job with real medical benefits was just too good to pass up.

I’m still working as a web developer at the same university after more than 23 years.