Get to know Lijit

Last week, I made mention of Mike and now would like to talk about him in much greater detail. After we got our most recent funding, we went into hiring mode. Mike was one of the first in the round of "new guys" who joined us in July. Here he is, helping to make our environment more productive...

After explaining that it was a requirement to humor me and my blog posts, he kindly answered the following questions.

    1. What is your Lijit contribution?

My primary contribution is to make sure that our software has a nice safe sandbox to play in.  I’m having fun finding innovative ways of doing that, and I’m enjoying the luxury of working for a company that trusts me to explore these new ways of doing things.  By now I can make just about anybody’s eyes glaze over talking about virtualization, and clustering, and virtualized clusters, and so on.  Suffice it to say that we’re doing things with our infrastructure that a lot of companies are talking about, but relatively few have gotten around to actually doing.

    2. What is your least favorite word and why?

My least favorite word is probably “there” (or “they’re” or “their”).  I was raised by an English teacher turned college professor, and I’m no grammarian, but it drives me crazy how sloppy people are with language.  This sloppiness is especially bad among IT professionals, who in general are not great communicators to begin with.  “There, they’re and their” have got to be the most misused words in the English language.

    3. What sound or noise do you love and why?

Running water, or wind, or any sort of continuous white noise.  Anything to distract from the constant ringing in my ears.

    4. What profession, other than your own, would you like to attempt and why?

I was a Fine Art major in college, concentrating on photography, and my wife was a Fine Art/Art History major who now works at the Denver Art Museum.  We occasionally entertain fantasies about opening a fine art gallery/studio.  The nightmare scenario that accompanies that fantasy is winding up doing senior portraits, precious “hand tinted” baby pictures, and the ever popular nude portraits of pregnant women to pay the bills.

    5. Something you're guilty of...

        Failing to age in a dignified manner; a guilt I share with many people of my generation (or at least many of my friends).  At 37 years old, I still haven’t gotten over listening to house music and watching South Park.  I can’t escape the feeling I should be in tweed jackets with elbow patches by now. 

Mike is a great photographer and I wanted to take a picture of him taking a picture. (Because I'm geeky like that sometimes all the time.) He discusses his newest photographic toys and tricks of the trade on his blog. Lijit is lucky to have someone like Mike...an artist and a technology innovator. That must be why he fits in so well with the rest of us. Thanks for joining the party Mike--we're glad to have you!

 

Comments

[Dr. Eunice Merideth]

What an intelligent, good-looking young man! His mother must be very proud of his remark about language. Oh---I am his mother, but he does make me proud.
Eunice Merideth

[Tara Anderson]

I'm a little jealous because Mike's mom commented here before my own mom. But you have every reason to be proud Dr. Merideth...your son is wonderful!