warning

Idiotprogrammer: A Short Biographical Sketch

Update: February 2007. Left here for historical reasons. But here is my most recent biographical information. My most recent resume is my linkedin profile

I am a technical writer/trainer currently living in Houston, Texas. Most of my writing recently can be found on idiotprogrammer weblog, which is a hodgepodge of things I've been reading/learning or having opinions about. It tends to go in random directions, so you not find anything interesting in recent posts, but occasionally I use the weblogs not merely as a receptable for links but a guide to my thoughts and beliefs. People say that you are what you read/watch, so I guess it's only fair to mention my Books I've been Reading and Movies I've Been Watching . I write fiction under several pseudonyms, so you won't have access to that, although if you read my site carefully enough, you might be able to guess where my pseudonymous writing is.

For the voyeuristically inclined, here are links to my recent photo gallery archive at flickr . I started this in November 2004, and it has over a thousand photos. I have copies of some of them in my family photos .

You can find my resume here, although I'm happily employed at Texas Instruments in Houston. I have a degree in English from Trinity University and a master's degree in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University. I've participated in writing workshops with several notable writers, including John Barth, J.M. Coetzee (who recently won the Nobel Prize ), Robert Flynn , Stephen Dixon Joyce Carol Oates. I've written short stories, novellas, dramatic pieces, travel essays, book reviews, cookbooks and political commentary. Recently I've been writing book reviews for Slashdot.org. I also recently organized a storytelling event in Houston.

Between 1995 and 1997 I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Vlore, Albania. I taught university students at the University of Vlore. I also had the chance to witness firsthand a grand civil uprising that eventually led to the evacuation of all Americans. Between 1997 and 1998 I taught at a business institute in Ukraine and had an opportunity to witness firsthand a country's transition to a free market economy. I've written several travel essays about my experiences, including my description of the Albanian civil unrest in 1997.

I obtained Irish dual citizenship in July 2002, so I am officially a European citizen! I aspire someday to return to Europe and perhaps to India or East Asia. As much as I love America, it's helpful not to view the world merely from an American's perspective.

The countries where I lived had limited or no Internet access (Albania didn't even have computers, much less electricity!), so it was not until 1998 that I really learned about the Internet. I created my first Excel spreadsheet in late 1998 and my first decent web page in early 1999. I studied a few things, and before I knew it I was working as a technical writer at Dell Computers (well, least until the high tech bubble began to burst and I was laid off). Unemployment is never fun, but I wrote a novella about it in 1990, and indeed, I have managed to learn a bit about networking, linux, databases and content management systems. But despite my geek pretensions, I am first and foremost a writer.

This website will hopefully contain old essays and articles I have written since 1999. Stuff on technology and business will go to the idiotprogrammer domain, while personal and creative essays will go to the imaginaryplanet.net domain. The project of converting my old writing to web documents will be a massive undertaking, and I expect it to take several years.

For those searching me out using keywords, I'll mention a few related to my past: Strake Jesuit, Trinity University, Johns Hopkins University, Johnson O'Connor, Nada Magazine, Slashdot, Book Review, Killough, instructional technology, hapax, sharethemusic, share music, Carfiction, Peace Corps Albania, Vlore, Vlora, Bobby Nagle, Alief, Austin, Robert J. Nagle, Dell, Texas Instruments, TI, Lutsk, Ukraine, Albania, Volyn Institute of Economics and Management, frayday, Booknotes, imaginaryplanet, asiafirst, south by southwest, Ismail Qemali. Robert Nagle is a writer living in Houston with a background in teaching, technology and Eastern Europe.

By the way, I am not the Bobby Nagle who is the European gay porn star, nor am I the Robert Nagle who sings country music or does adventure racing.