Personal

I’m a professional computer geek, an amateur musician and composer, and a full-time husband and father.

I spend time on a number of Open Source projects including PatchMaster. For a list, visit my projects page.

I’ve written Introduction to Ruby for Mac OS X, the MacTech March 2003 cover article and Building Applications with Berkeley DB Java Edition, which appears in the September 2004 issue of the Java Developer’s Journal. I’m also working on a book on Emacs. For the full list and more on my budding writing career, see the writing page.

I’m a computer geek and a musician. I’m happiest when I can combine the two.

Take a peek at what I’m doing with music, what equipment I use, some samples of my music (coming some day), and a MIDI specification reference. My main instrument is keyboards.

Professional

Here’s my resume.

I use and enjoy Ruby, Java, Python, Objective-C and Mac OS X, Perl, C++, Smalltalk, and design and programming in general. Languages I’ve experimented with and enjoy include Elixir, Erlang, Clojure, and Haskell.

Musical

Currently, I play keyboards in Ellis Island.

For a while, I was learning to play the Chapman Stick, a ten- or twelve-stringed instrument that is played by tapping the fretboard with both hands. "For a while?" Yes; I must confess that I’ve not touched it (or my keyboards) for months. You’ve probably heard the Stick already; it’s played in such songs as Peter Gabriel’s "Shock The Monkey" and "I Don’t Remember" and Adrian Belew’s "Elephant Talk." For more on my musical hacking, including some music clips, take a peek at my music page.

Contextual

If you’d like to contact me, feel free to email me at jim@jimmenard.com. You can also jump here for more info.

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GCS/MU/CM d+ s:+ a C++$ UL+ UX+ US+$ U*++$ P+++$ L++ E+++ W++ N++ o K++++
w--- O? M++$ V PS+ PE Y+ PGP t+@ 5- X R tv b+++ DI++++ D+ G e++ h---- r+++
y++++ UF+
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

For a translation of this gibberish—which I should probably update since it’s been around 20 years since I created that—visit the Geek Code Wikipedia entry.