In April of 2008, the owner of the company I worked for told me that he was, effectively, shutting down the company and that I needed to find a new job by June. I was not happy. Over the previous 3.5 years, I had been the entire tech department, I had built every piece of software the company had, and I was extremely emotionally invested in the company. I started looking at opportunities and chased several opportunities, but none panned out.

Ironically, the company I was leaving was an online job search company...

Finally, I contacted an old friend to see if his company had any opportunities. They did, and I interviewed with the team the following week. It was a *six hour interview*, during which my friend stayed out of it, to keep any personal bias from influencing the team. A few days later, they made an offer, which I accepted. Did I mention the *six hour interview*?

I've been with them for nearly a year and I can honestly say it's the best fit in a job I've ever experienced. While I enjoyed working completely alone, as I had done for the previous 3.5 years, the team I have joined is the best, and smarted, I've ever seen.

Looking at it now, my previous company closing was really the best thing that could have happened to me.

I don't know that I'd say I'm truly famous, but I am somewhat well-known, in certain circles. I am co-author of the book "Ant Developer's Handbook", published by SAMS in 2002. It sold moderately well. I have been published in Java Developer's Journal twice, in 2002 and 2003.

I am also the creator of MiddleClickClose, a Safari plugin that enables the closing of tabs by clicking your middle mouse button, and for ExportToArchive, a plugin for iPhoto that allows exporting of photos to Zip and other compressed formats.

Some of my friends know that I was an uncredited extra in the box office flop, "Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers", from way back in 1988. For three days in 1988 I sat around an abandoned YMCA camp in Waco, GA, waiting to be called to the set. I eventually made it into one scene.