About me!

Well, what can I say?

I work as an engineer for Telsis, a company who make various kinds of telephony hardware---see their web page for more information because I can't be bothered to describe it all here. My job involves designing and coding in C (for embedded stuff) and C++ (for PC stuff with MFC). I quite enjoy most of it, and I certainly like working for the company which has a very relaxed atmosphere. Well, most of the time it does anyway.

I live in Locks Heath, a boring suburb near (not of; it's not really a suburb of anywhere) Southampton. Southampton's about 20 minutes drive (to the city centre; a lot less to the Northern and Eastern suburbs where many of my friends live); Fareham is rather less. Portsmouth is also nearby, but why would I want to go there?

I was born in Kingston-upon-Thames, a town in London. That is, it's part of Greater London, and part of the continuously built-up sprawl that is London, but is definitely a separate town with its own identity (as are Croydon, Bromley, and other places that were added to Greater London in the 60s). One not-very-interesting fact about Kingston is that the headquarters of Surrey County Council are there, a hangover from when it used to be in Surrey. Occasionally they discuss moving their headquarters to somewhere within Surrey, but the expense always puts them off. If I was a Surrey taxpayer I'd probably be glad of this

When I was not very old at all my parents moved out of Kingston, first to Effingham Junction, and then a few years later to Bookham. These are respectively a small village and a fair-sized town that calls itself a village, both in the middle of Surrey. A lot of my friends thought the area really boring, but there are quite a few decent pubs around, including a couple within ten minutes walk of my parents' house: what more could anyone want?

I went to secondary school at Therfield school in Leatherhead. It was OK. Actually I really enjoyed most of it, especially in the sixth form. I haven't really kept in touch with most of the people who were friends of mine there; I sometimes wish I had. I just discovered that my school has a web site. It doesn't look that great, but I wouldn't expect it to.

I went to university at Cambridge, where I started off doing Physics, but changed to a four year electronic engineering course (the actual course title was "Electrical and Information Sciences"). I was at Peterhouse, the smallest college in Cambridge. I didn't do very well, because I'm lazy.

I like playing with computers. Programming them doesn't seem as entertaining as it did before I started doing it for a job though. I also like drinking beer, especially a good pint of real ale in a nice traditional pub, which is why I'm a member of CAMRA.

I like sailing, but haven't done much of it recently: if I ever get lots of money I don't otherwise know what to do with, I'll spend some on a boat, probably a fast dinghy. I've recently learnt to scuba dive and I'm looking forward to going some nice places on holiday and diving there.

I also quite like photography, and I've put together a page with some of my photos. I recently bought a digital camera. I don't expect it to replace my SLR for arty photos, but it's nice for social occasions. I've put some photos taken with it on the web here