I was born in Palo Alto, California in 1961.

My freshman year of high school I joined the chess and math clubs.

My father was a professor of civil engineering at MIT, and my mother taught high school English.

Between rounds of speed chess I read enough of a programming manual to teach myself to write programs on the school's DEC mainframe in the language Basic.

There are relatively few experiments in atomic physics these days that don't involve the use of a laser.

It was there I met my future wife, Celeste Landry, although our lives took us separate ways for many years and we were not to marry until more than ten years later.

I certainly remember building model rockets. It was fun to watch the rocket blast into the air, suspenseful to wonder if the parachute would open to bring the rocket safely back.

With every passing year, BEC proves that it still has surprises left for us.

After a semester or so, my infatuation with computers burnt out as quickly as it had begun.

I was partly old-fashioned and partly modern.

As it was, I realized choosing the study of Chinese literature as my life's work was probably a mistake.

Today is a brand new beginning for me!

My family took me to church when I was like 4 years old, and I had to be in a pageant, and I was playing Jesus.

'Twas but a dream, yet by my heart I knew, Which still was panting, part of it was true: Oh how I strove the rest to have believed; Ashamed and angry to be undeceived!

I think he likes it. He fits in with our ethos. He's a good worker and is an excellent pro. Thank goodness he likes his training or else he wouldn't settle here.

I have a lot of cultural references that have amassed in my brain like shrapnel over the years that are meaningful to me.

All human victories, all human progress, stand upon the inner force.

Remember that in 1993 a company with a bad Web site needed an engineer. Today, a company with a bad Web site needs a psychiatrist.

If a man needs an elaborate tombstone in order to remain in the memory of his country, it is clear that his living at all was an act of absolute superfluity.

For so it is, O Lord my God, I measure it! But what it is I measure, I do not know.

When I'm writing, I look like a fool because the parts are moving through me and I'm crying and laughing and making faces.