About…
Me…
I have to confess a certain discomfort with the notion of a whole page focused primarily on…me. I’m not a figure of celebrity. Nor am I aware of ever having uttered something so earth-shatteringly original and insightful as to require humanity to pause and reflect upon my alleged genius. I’m a guy with a family, some hobbies/interests and a history of programming software. Still, given that a personal website is fundamentally something of an ego-exercise, not providing at least some information on the author is the web-ish equivalent of commissioning an epic statue of oneself but omitting the head from the finished product: it’ll work but be noticed more for what’s missing than for what’s present.
With that in mind, hopefully you’ll find the following informative, insightful, amusing or at least helpful in understanding what you’re seeing elsewhere on my website. Somewhat long-winded though…
I’m in the middle of things (in a manner of speaking).
“Middle”, as in Middle America. Born in Chicago I’ve lived my life in various locales throughout Illinois and Iowa. I took a degree in music from a fine institution of higher learning in central Illinois in the late 80′s. A change-of-careers-before-the-first-one-took-off led to work stops in other parts of Illinois, finally relocating back home to Chicago in the mid 1990′s, where I’ve stayed since.
I currently live in the north suburbs of Chicago with my wonderful wife, 3 fabulous children and lazy but lovable cat.
I work with computers.
My work career has centered on software development and IT, in some form or another. What I do and who I do it for has mostly mirrored the trends from the late 1980′s to present. I entered my field as a self-educated programmer which made for some interesting experiences in and of itself, working my way through various technologies, roles and employers. The last 20 years have been an entertaining time to be a software developer, to say the very least, and I’ve enjoyed the Zelig-like ride alongside its continually evolving landscape.
I’ve worked for companies great and small, successful and…not so much. I currently work as an enterprise architect for the College of American Pathologists (a truly fascinating place, warranting its own someday-to-be-written item elsewhere on this site.) If you’re interested in the gory details of who, what, when and how long, my LinkedIn page is a better resource for this. If we’ve worked together before I’d really enjoy hearing from you again!
I do a fair amount of off-hours development as well, working with fascinating (well, at least to me and other similar people) tools that don’t currently have a whole lot of exposure in the corporate world.
And for those of you developer-types who might be interested…yes I do have a pet open-source project in progress (widely distributed content catalog processing, Erlang-based, thanks for caring!), but it’s a slow progress at best. I’ll post a GitHub link for your enjoyment and critique at whatever future point I actually have something working…
I like most creative things…
…which, I suppose, is a lofty way of saying “I like lots of stuff” without making me look aimless. (Hopefully.)
Droll insight aside, my interests are anything with creativity and intelligence to them. My closest friends, all smart, kind people leading lives with interesting plotlines. Music of almost any species. Language (I am an incorrigible word-nerd.) Evocative, imaginative writing. Beautiful art. Food, both cuisine and comfort. Humor. My children and their never-ending collective journey of discovery. Elegantly designed software solving complex problems in innovative ways. History and stories of unfamiliar places. Striking architecture. Everyday things, cleverly designed. A soccer game played with flair and pace. A certain Chicago baseball team winning the World Series in my lifetime, with me present to watch. Effective public policy that accomplishes something worthwhile. My iPod. Many, many more.
The downside of throwing my lot in with the fox in the fox-vs-hedgehog debate is that there’s never enough time for any one interest, no matter how worthwhile. The upside is that I’m rarely bored, which I think to be a good thing.
I enjoy doing things with others.
I try to keep busy with doings in addition to family and work. The line-up changes from time to time; my current set (March 2010) is fairly representative. I help run a caucus process and political party for the town I live in. When not helping to keep an election running smoothly, I serve as a village commissioner. I’m the Cubmaster for a Cub Scout pack, in addition to being the den leader for my middle son’s den. I coach AYSO soccer. I also serve on the religious school board for my synagogue.
It’s varied work, all of it…but rarely dull and never empty.
I’d like to get to know more people…
…which is why I’m very happy you’re visiting me here! Send me an email and introduce yourself.
Prefer something more short-attention-span friendly? No problem…follow me on Twitter! (erichogberg) In my opinion I’m the world’s worst tweeter, so don’t expect jaw-dropping insight from me. Nor am I the sort to tweet my daily breakfast menu, so you’ll have to remain blissfully ignorant of my humdrum routine. But every once in a while I find something I’m happy to share.
If you’re professionally-focused, my LinkedIn page, referenced above, is a good way to reach me and I’m always looking to connect with other people. If you are a recruiter-type please note that I am not currently (03/2010) looking for a new position but would still like to make your acquaintance.
And, seemingly like the rest of the universe, I do have a Facebook profile as well. I don’t post there often, but you’ll find the occasional link to someone/something interesting somewhere else on the ‘book.
What’s Here…
I’ve got something for pretty much everybody here, if you know where to look.
This being a blog, you’ll find writings of various sorts. I have attempted to be helpful by separating these into various categories, easily reachable through the appropriate link on the bottom of the page:
News of my various goings-on, as well as those of my family.
Quant-itative stuff that interests me, mostly programming- and technology-related.
In the same vein, Qual-itative things…culture, aesthestics, all the luftmensch stuff that stimulates me.
Finally, various things can can only be classified as et cetera, which is hopefully self-explanatory.
As this is a re-boot of my prior (generally dismal) blogging efforts, all the non-news category offerings are currently thin to the point of emaciation, but I am trying to change that. I’m all about reader-suggestions; if there’s something you’d like me to take a turn on, let me know. I am told I can be quite entertaining (usually unintentionally, alas.)
Pictures, mostly of my children, are found by clicking the innovatively named “Pictures” link at the top of the page. For your additional entertainment, I randomly display one of a set of particularly dear pictures on the right side of each page. Keep reloading pages at random for more picture goodness. (Be warned, however: they tend to start repeating themselves after a bit.)
I’m a voracious web-consumer, merrily browsing hither-and-yon in pursuit of interesting, stimulating things. A number of sites I visit seem to provide these on a fairly consistent basis. Since you’re motivated enough to visit me here I thought, in my so-very-modest fashion, you might also find some of them interesting as well and provide a bevy of links on the right side of the page, in the “Places to Browse, Things to Read” section. (I receive no consideration from any of these, nor do I have a business relationship with any of them. I simply like what they do consistently enough to recommend them to others; I won’t be offended if you don’t share my opinion.)
Finally, to help keep things organized, some navigation controls:
- The right side of the page contains a set of links to recent postings. Beware: “recent” is a highly subjective timeframe, given my leisurely work rate.)
- I tend to write about certain topics repeatedly. You can find tag-ish links to these topics in the “Writing About…” box.
- If you feel daring and would like to investigate the shadowy past of this website, there’s also an archive selector that lets you spin the Wayback Machine to read what was interesting, stimulating or both to me, once upon a time. If content prior to 2010 looks a bit thin to you…you’re correct, there’s been a general neglect of useful content (outside of pictures) for quite sometime, with 2009 being a particularly lost year. We’ll see what we can do about that going forward though.
How This All Works… (Contractually obligated Nerd-Speak)
Being a programmer and web developer I can’t very well omit a colophon describing how all the bits here work together. If you’re neither technically inclined nor insomniac you’re welcome to move right along and skip the following.
erichogberg.com is hosted by A2 Hosting. I’ve worked with my fair number of shared hosting providers in the past. No one has impressed me as much as A2 has. I’m not paid to write that: they do a great job of keeping the plumbing working and providing a massive amount of functionality at a very reasonable price. Highly recommended, if you’re looking for a shared hosting provider.
Content is managed and served by WordPress and a variety of useful plugins for same. The fact that all I have to say is “WordPress” to specify all the various storage/retrieval/publishing/editing functionality I need to manage the site should serve as a testament to its quality. Use them for your blog, or visit wordpress.com and they’ll host your blog for you, free of charge!
My varied scribblings are given style and panache via the talented folks at WooThemes. I have arrived at the point in my professional development where I realize it’s better to let real, competent web designers style the look, and I’ll tweak the edge cases to make me happy.
All the pictures you see throughout the website reside on Flickr, the World’s Greatest Photo Site, in my not-so-humble opinion. If you’d like to see the whole megillah, comment on pictures (always welcome!), or similar visit my Flickr photo stream page.
