Now, I have been asked time and time again to explain the whole schmick thing, since it's not my last name and I use it as my handle for everything. So, let me explain. I used to have a habit of making up words when I couldn't think of the right one (or a fitting one) quite fast enough. One time, when asking my college roommate to hand me something, I couldn't think of what it was called. It was a collander or something. So I came out with, "Pass me the...uh... schmickie." We both found the sound of the word and the fact that she knew just what I was talking about rather amusing. I began using it often for our own petty delight and it became a running joke how she always knew just what I was referring to. When I decided that it would be useful to have an email account that didn't have my full real name in it, since my college email address did, I signed up for an account with usa.net, which I still have. Since I couldn't think of anything better, I decided to use schmick as my handle, which was a variant of schmickie that I had also been using. Later, when I got my second rat, my roommate and I couldn't think of a name for her for weeks. We tried various things, but nothing seemed to fit. In the mean time, we would just say things like "Hey, the schmickie is getting into your pizza." or "Don't step on the schmickie! She's right by your foot." Eventually, we decided that was it, that was the name that fit, and, thus, she was dubbed Schmickie. Of course in the many years that have followed, I have continued to use schmick as my own handle. And Schmickie, for her part, holds the spot as my favorite rat of all those that came before or after. She was the most sociable, loving, intelligent, and cute, and the favorite of most of my family as well.
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6/23/97: So I finally did it! I graduated Cum Laude from Rice University with a double major, Psychology and Linguistics. I decided, however, that my main interest currently lies in honing my programming skills and general knowledge of all things computer-related. I am currently working at a small software company, Modulus, as a programmer and loving it. Although I’m still in Houston, I hope to move to California sometime soon - prolly the San Francisco bay area somewhere.2/17/99: Well, I’m still here in Houston, working for the same company. However, we were recently acquired so now I work for Enron Communications, Inc. A nice fat raise and an education reimbursement program were among my many sweet benefits. Fortunately, very l ittle else has changed in the office. We still go about daily business like a small company (although ECI is a small company itself, but many times our previous size). So the acquisition was incredibly cool - all of the great benefits with very little of the overhead of corporate structure that makes most jobs so icky. I am still quite happy coding away and, although I plan to start taking classes again soon, maybe one or two a semester, I have no idea when I will actually go back to school full time or move to California. Both would mean giving up this awesome job. Don't you just hate decisions?!
2/2/00: We changed names again. Now we're Enron Broadband Services. I think ECI sounded better than EBS, but they don't pay me the big bucks to make those decisions. Oh well. I didn't end up taking any classes last year because Rice charges an arm and a leg for classes taken outside of a degree plan. We are getting a better education reimbursement plan this year, so maybe that will be a possibility now. I bought myself a townhouse and a horse. So I guess that means I'll be staying in Houston at least for a little while longer. Not that the house would be hard to sell. I'd say things are going nicely.
2/7/01: I was, not surprisingly, one of the 4,000 recently laid off Enron employees, considering they were already looking to get out of broadband as aggressively as possible. I am relaxing, looking around for good opportunities, and enjoying my time off for now. A small flurry of recent events resulted in an odd amount of T.V. appearances for me.
11/4/03: Ooops, I forgot to mention that I finally landed a permanent job. I did not have a steady job for a year and a half after Enron laid us all off. I picked up contracts here and there, but it was a rough period. Finally, I landed a steady gig at Lexicon Genetics in the Woodlands. My first day was June 22nd, so I've been there a little over four months now. My job includes supporting a legacy system that is running PHP on top of MySQL and the re-engineering effort running Java on top of Oracle. It's a small company and a small group I work in and a great bunch of guys, so I'm having a blast. I've gotten sick of the commute (45 miles, which takes me about an hour one way), so I'm relocating to the Woodlands. It's a beautiful area and my new place is gorgeous, so I really don't mind.