Who Is James? I debated about just what to put on this page. I couldn't decide if I wanted just professional information, personal information, or both. I opted to do a mix and just lay it all out there. You may or may not agree with some of my views, but hey - live and let live. J I was born in Akron, Ohio in 1969 and my parents moved to Ralston, Nebraska when I was just 1 year old. I've lived in Nebraska ever since, and spent much of my youth boating and camping on the Missouri river. When I was younger, I really wanted to move out of the state. Now that I'm older, I've come to appreciate Nebraska a LOT, and I plan on staying until my bones get too old for the winters. I live in Papillion, Nebraska, which is outside of Omaha. CNN/Money Magazine rated it the 6th best place to live in cities with less than 50,000 people. We're right outside of Omaha, which just got rated the 7th best Big City to live in. Yeah, it surprised me too! Really though, it's great. Affordable housing, good schools, low crime - Papillion is fantastic! I'm married and I have two children, two dogs, three snakes, two geckos and probably some other critter I'm forgetting about at the moment. I tend to keep my private life private, so you won't hear me speak about my family much here, but they are EVERYTHNG to me. Life is good! I graduated from Ralston High School mid-term of 1988. It only took me about 14 years to finish my bachelor's degree after that. I'm currently working on my MBA. I'm not sure why, I think I'm mental. Scratch that, I KNOW I'm mental, but punishing myself with more "higher" education really has little to do with it. I love to better myself and enjoy learning, so I guess that's what drives the insanity. I am Vice President of Tigerpaw Software. Tigerpaw is family owned and I'm one of the family members. My father started the company back in 1984. My mother was the first employee, and she's still there (working for me, isn't that odd?). We currently have about 37 employees and we're looking to add a few more. I'm responsible for the development, support, and training at Tigerpaw. We produce an award-winning Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software solution. We have about 16,000 users on our current version and we're in 28 countries. I have a fantastic team, and I really do enjoy my work. I also write books, but I do that in the evenings in my 'spare' time. Writing was much easier before I had a family, so I tend to avoid new book projects these days. I still revise my most popular titles, so I'm usually working on a few books every year and a half or so. I've taught at the college level, but I have no desire to do that again. I've also been asked to write some articles for DevX and some magazines, which I might do.  My free time is very limited right now and I've learned to prioritize my life a bit better than I used to - I'd much rather be playing guitar than writing technical articles! :) Let's see, I've been a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer but I no longer keep that certification current. I got burned out on certification when I wrote the MCSD In a Nutshell book for O'Reilly. I have a black belt in Wado Ryu Karate. I've flown solo in an airplane (that was my first college major), and I'm a member of Mensa. Hmm, I also cleaned fish tanks for a living when I was younger, but I prefer not to talk about those dark times! I used to consider myself a secular humanist; I'm spiritual, but I don't subscribe to any organized religion. Live and let live, I say - just follow the wisdom of our founding fathers and keep the separation between church and state!  I've been a registered Independent all my life, I think ol' W. has the gray-matter of a trained chimp. Until the recent election, I was convinced that our politcal process was broken. However, the massive victory of Obama and the shift in political demographics across all states has me extremely jazzed about the future of America. I'm a member of the American Civil Liberties Union and a very strong supporter of states' rights. I write my senators and congressmen at least a half-dozen times a year on numerous issues regarding civil liberties and abuses of power. I love to play guitar and collect vintage guitar gear. I've built a nice home studio where I record with my band Chemical Echo. I wish I had more time to devote to music, but I do what I can. I also enjoy sport-shooting, archery, and I'm into white tail deer hunting. I also enjoy fishing. I was fortunate to take a fishing trip in Canada and I'm totally hooked on pike fishing. My son, who is 10, has been deer hunting with me since he was 6 and I recently taught him how to shoot for the first time (he's shooting a .22 in the picture). The kid is a natural! He just got his first BB gun and he's having a ball. By the time he's old enough to hunt he'll be incredible. I better keep practicing if I expect to keep up! My daughter has gone hunting with me once. We didn't get anything, which is probably good. It looks like that's not going to be the sport for her. Volleyball is much more exciting for her. She's got a lot of her mom in her (which is a good thing). I developed this entire site using Visual Studio 2005 and ASP.NET. I had a little help when I got stuck, but I'd say I developed 98% of everything here - including the images and animations. After reading this page, you'll probably notice that the web site content mirrors many of my interests. The only real purpose of this site is to provide code samples for readers of my books and some discussion forums for people to discuss my books. Everything beyond that is just about having fun for me. If you've got any suggestions for improving the site, please let me know. I think that about sums it up. The Omaha World Herald did an article on me a number of years back. You can read it here. I was also a fortunate recipient of the Midland's Business Journal 40 under 40 award, which you can read about here. Please excuse the picture - I've lost 21 pounds since then! :) If I can think of anything to add and I can overcome my laziness, I'll provide more more information. Until then, feel free to shoot me an email and introduce yourself - I'd love to hear from you! j