Huffman Coding

… with a bunch of Family Stuff too

My Bio

Born to mildly amused parents in 1963, I was raised in Westerville, Ohio, a town known most famously for being the national headquarters for the Anti-Saloon League during Prohibition a century ago. During my formative years, I played a somewhat better than mediocre clarinet in the high school band and was in the local production of South Pacific, but as a general rule I didn’t offend or make an impression on anyone. Sadly, the first eighteen years of my life can summarized into this three sentence paragraph.

Because Dad bleeds scarlet and gray, I attended The Ohio State University and earned a Bachelor’s degree in Computer and Information Science in 1984. Due largely to academic inertia, I received a Master’s degree in the same subject the following year. Having mastered the art of crossing a busy street, I worked at Chemical Abstracts Service, which was just north of campus, after graduation. I am presently employed as a Staff Engineer at Westell, Inc. doing Java web work. I enjoy my work almost all of the time and it’s been enjoyable.

Somewhere along the line, I got a life. I think it was some afternoon in October of 1988. Had I to do it all over again, I would have gotten a tad more obnoxious a whole lot sooner. As I like to quantify everything, the Keirsey Temperament Sorter indicates I have an ISTJ (Inspector) personality. Tickle.com determined that I was a Visionary Philosopher. TheSpark.com’s (now defunct) Personality Test says I’m an SICT (Accountant) personality. And to think in eighth grade, a guidance counselor said I had the personality for a garbage collector.

In late 1992, I met my match. I married by my wife, Chris, in the Spring of 1994. Shrubbery, real furniture, and stencil borders in the kitchen arrived soon after. I also married into fur: we have twos cats, Bam Bam Dino Cooper and CiCi. We live in central Ohio, where we have settled into suburban domesticity without much angst. In 1998, my wife and I adopted two baby girls, one from Vietnam and one from China. A third was adopted in 2003. Our daughters keep us young.

Recently, my wife have gotten in euro-style board games, usually playing with our daughters’ friends’ parents. I bring a tub of games and teach them to whoever can tolerate me for an evening.

During the warmer months of the year, I am a pretty avid cyclist usually doing a handful of metric century mile rides each year. No racing, just touring. I started riding the week long camping and biking GOBA tour decades ago and for a few years rode with my daughters. They have moved on; I haven’t. I now also ride Pelotonia and have raised tens of thousands of dollars for cancer research.