What is this thing, and who is this Dan Gaul character?
This is my blog. It will contain my rants, things I think are interesting, work issues, my love for hockey, coding, and anything else I find relevant. As for who I am, I’m a husband and father of two boys (5 years and 3 months respectively as of this writing.) I’ve done many things in my life so far; I started skateboarding when I was in 6th grade. I stopped when I was 28 when I broke my back (burst fracture of the L1, but that’s a different story.) Some people call me a computer geek, even though I dont necessarily think so. I started toying with computers on a Commadore 128, teaching myself BASIC, using it to create basic forms and draw. I upgraded to an Amiga, but the parts for it were so expensive, and being in 8th grade when I got the Amiga, it basically sat and colltected dust. Fast forward to when I was in college, and my interest in computers got rekindled on a Macintosh computer. I dont even remember the model, but I upgraded to a 386, then a 8500/120 Mac, then a 486. To keep a long story short, I went to community college at first like lots of other kids. I didnt know what I wanted to do, and by the time I did, I had run out of money (I was paying my own way from money I received from an automobile accident.) I was going to University of Washington at the time. When I started looking for a job so I could save up to go back, I ended up at Microsoft as a contractor for two years. I left Microsoft and went to Clarus Corp, then to RealNetworks for 5 years. I eventually left to focus full time on Designtechnica with Ian, and I haven’t looked back.
Well, this is probably more history than most people would want to know about me. Feel free to contact me and ask questions: dangaul AT designtechnica.com