I'M IT!
My turn to jump on this blog-game via EdJez, Scott Hanselman and Pablo Galiano :)
So I will also share five things most people don't know about me, and tag five other guys.
- I am probably the only professional developer (as in doing it for a living) in the world that cannot use the IANAL acronym, as I AM a lawyer, and from the most prestigious law school in Argentina, in addition :o). I am probably among the most successfull lawyers of all time, as I never ever lost a case. The only one I had, I won, and it was for my father.
- Similar to Peter, I never saw myself as a professional software developer, even though I started programming around 12, first with Basic and next year with Pascal, and then Visual Basic. I always saw it as a hobby, something fun I could do instead of playing football with the crowd ;). Obviously, one job after the other took me in the right direction in the end, and I'm glad I will (hopefully) never have to work as a lawyer.
- I studied music at a conservatory, about 8 years IIRC. Violin was my main instrument. I played in a number of orchestras and the "official" tango orchestra until I moved to Buenos Aires (see 4.). At around 15, I figured out playing tango wasn't going to get me too many chics, so I started with electric gitar, after a brief time with the drums (while still playing tango with my violin!). I happened to like metal too much, so I ended up playing in a number of metal bands, which also turned out not to get me too many chics either... I was the lead guitar, but it's been so long since then, that I can barely play a decent riff nowadays.
- Unlike many believe, I played each and every sport available in my native town: football, basketball, voleiball, baseball, swimming, tennis, paddle, etc. etc. I was never too good at any, and never got hooked to sports. I'm not a big fan of watching sports either, quite unlike most argentinean men. (Spending weekends at home watching football games seems to be the #1 complain from most women around here).
- I'm from a small town about 300 km (~186 miles) from Buenos Aires. I moved to Buenos Aires (where I currently live and where my company is based) at the age of 20, 12 years ago. It's a lovely city (now that I spent 45 days travelling Europe with my wife, 2 daughters, my mother and my mother in law, I can really appreciate it), and it changed my life forever. First, it gave me internet (wait, keep reading!), back in '97. That was unthinkable in my native town. Thanks to that and mIRC, I met my wife on a chat room where I also made some friends. It was the glory days when chatting was about making friends, going out as a group, and not about getting a chic. Although that was sometimes a nice bonus, of course ;). And I also met my partner Victor "vga" Garcia Aprea also on the internet, competing on MS newsgroups to answer as many advanced questions on ASP.NET 1.0 custom control building as we could. He won, and he earned his ASP.NET MVP award much earlier than me. I got him into writing for Wrox Press after that, and eventually we founded Clarius Consulting, which is the dream company to work on in Argentina ;). (ok, this item is a tad more than just one thing about me, hehe)
My turn to tag five guys now: