Allow me to introduce myself.
I was born and raised in Nebraska; before obsessing over semantic markup and progressive enhancement, I was detasseling corn in the summers, and listening to Husker football on the radio in the fall. I met my wife, a Minneapolis native, at Creighton University, and was able to extol upon her the virtues of The Good Life. For a short while, I moved to the Twin Cities with her, before we returned to Omaha, where we had our daughter. We then moved to Lincoln, Nebraska, where my wife earned her PhD from UNL, and we added a son to our family. We recently moved to Solon, Iowa, and look forward to the many adventures that is sure to bring.
I first started playing with HTML in high school. As mentioned before, I had a trusty Geocities account, a copy of HTML For Dummies, and an Internet connection. That first site was something of an abomination, with an embarrassing number of frames, blinking text, lightsaber HRs, and graphic backgrounds. At the same time, I was hooked by the freedom to create and publish whatever I felt like. The ability that the Internet has to quickly and easily allow someone to publish whatever they desire to a nearly infinite audience is still awe-inspiring to me, and I love seeing what people do with that. It was that power that led me to this profession, and I haven’t regretted it in the least.
Beyond HTML, there are plenty of things that keep me occupied. My family is a big part of my life, and my children are especially adept at keeping me busy (and youthful — it’s disturbing how well I relate to a toddler's psyche). I love to spend time in the kitchen, cooking and baking, and then reaping the rewards. This has also led me to dabbling in homebrewing, and failing at keeping bees for more than one summer at a time. Finally, I’ve always enjoyed music — I have my headphones on more often than not, and though I haven’t made time to play my bass in way too long, I hope I will change that someday soon.