About Me
Early Years
I was born in England in 1973 and grew up near the village of Shirenewton in South East Wales.
My first computer arrived in 1984 and was a BBC Micro B. Very soon, I was teaching myself BASIC and 8086 assembler from books and magazines and was greatly inspired by computer games such as Elite and Repton.
By the time I left school, I was writing in C and 80286 assembler on a deafeningly loud Amstrad PC with a 28K modem and a SoundBlaster card. (Sadly, most of the noise was not coming from the SoundBlaster.)
University
I went on to study Artificial Intelligence with Psychology at Middlesex University in North London. During this time, I was lucky enough to find a work placement at Intelligent Research Ltd., a company specialising in bespoke AI products. They furnished me with up-to-date PC hardware with which to write NLP-related programs (and play Doom).
After graduating, I moved to Brighton to gain a Master's Degree in Evolutionary and Adaptive Systems from the University of Sussex. While applying for a scholarship from a games company in Cambridge, I attended an interview with a senior developer of an artificial life-based title. During this interview, it dawned on me that I knew more about games than my interviewer. I decided there and then to get a job as a games programmer.
Work
Brighton was such a fun place to live that I decided to stick around and worked at various games companies in the area. For a few years, I was torn away from Brighton to seek work in Guildford which is where I met my future wife, Heather, who was studying in at UCL at the time. I moved back to Brighton with her in the spring of 2006 and in the Autumn, she returned to the USA and her home state of Arizona.
Emigration
This year, I have followed Heather across the pond and in May, we were wed in Las Vegas. Our first child is due in early October and I am currently in the process of becomming a permanent resident of the United States. My work permit arrived recently and I am currently looking for a suitable progamming position.