My Life (A Short Bio)

My Life

I was born, raised, and currently live in New Bedford, MA. I am 20 years old. I have always liked cats. Over the course of my life, I've owned four of them. My cat Mustache is awesome! I work at a local sandwich shop named That's A Wrap. That's A Wrap officially opened it's doors in August of 2005. I have been working there for three years. Over the course of those three years, I have moved from a delivery driver to an assistant cook. I have met many people and shared in experiences that have changed my life.

I absolutely love drag racing. I have raced at my local drag strip (New England Dragway) a few times. It is such an adrenaline rush! Growing up, it seemed like I was there almost every weekend watching my father race his turbocharged Buick Grand National. Sometimes, I would video tape my dad racing. I think that video taping at the race track is what started my interest in photography.

One of the main reasons that I am interested in photography is because you can take a photograph of absolutely anything and make it look interesting. I use a Canon S3 IS to snap my photographs. I have done some post editing using Adobe Photoshop on a few of my photos. However, I'd rather not edit my photos because I want the viewer to see them as naturally appearing as possible. I use a Dynex tripod for my long exposure photographs. I took a photography course at Johnson & Wales University last year and it really spiked my interest in photography. I have a photographic interest in abandonment, animals, cars, long exposure, macro, nature, and many other categories.

As a web designer, I strive to have every aspect as perfect as possible. While I know that there is almost no way that a web site can be perfect, it is important to use the best possible and valid techniques. You may notice that I have two links on the bottom of every page (XHTML and CSS). These are there for you, my viewers, to use and see that I use these techniques to the best of my ability. They link to an external site (the W3C) which checks for validity in code. If all has gone well (and I believe it will), you should be able to see that both my XHTML and CSS code are 100% valid.

Education

I graduated from Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School in 2006. I majored in Information Technology during my sophomore-senior years of high school. During my junior and senior years I participated in the SkillsUSA Competition. I made it to the state competition, along with my partner Ryan Conner, in my junior year. Sadly, in my senior year, we (Ryan and I) did not qualify for the state competition. I took the liberty to teach myself XHTML (eXtensible HyperText Markup Language), a web programming language. I also taught myself a few of the more advanced techniques of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) which are used in web development. While most of my peers were still learning HTML and the basics of CSS, I would be able to stay one step ahead of my competition. I can remember that one of my teachers even said that he would come to me if he needed any help with CSS.

I currently attend Johnson & Wales University in Providence, RI. I have an Associate's Degree in Web Site Development. These first two years have flown by. I have met many new friends, and have learned a wealth of information. I am on pace to receive my Bachelor's Degree in Graphics and New Media in 2010. In my sophomore year, I was chosen to present some of my long exposure photography at the Digital Visions Conference which is held locally at Johnson & Wales University. I am a member of AIGA (the professional association for design). With the help of a few good people, Johnson & Wales University founded its own AIGA Chapter in Rhode Island in 2007. I was appointed the role of secretary for our AIGA chapter for the 2008-2009 school year.

Current Grade Point Average (G.P.A.) - 3.77/4.00.