The website you’re now on is the creation of eric Farris, the Systems Administrator for the Appalachian Laboratory, in Frostburg, MD, part of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.

My education is quite slight, consisting solely of a High School Diploma in 1989 (Frankfort High School, Short Gap, WV), and an A. A. S. in Computer Programming in 1991 (Potomac State College, Keyser, WV). And that’s it. The careful reader will note that no where in there is a study of Information Technology, no courses about the OSI model of networking, no fluffed-up certifications. I’ve gotten this far (though it’s not entirely clear how far this really is) in the IT and Systems world the old fashioned way.

The jobs I’ve had since college have all been systems related, beginning as a part-time laboratory assistant in the computer labs at Allegany College. Since then, I’ve had the most fun at work maintaining large installations of computers and doing custom programming, mostly in PHP these days.

If I have any hobbies at all, they would be gardening and music. Musically, I spent my formative years blowing on the small end of French Horns and Mellophones, and had one year of formal piano training way back when, after which I realized I could pick up things by ear much faster. My musical styles are somewhere in the range between George Winston and Mogwai (I’ll let that sink in for a minute…) My musical tastes are even more varied.

That said, though, I do spend a great deal of my spare time coding. It’s not a hobby so much as a love. I contribute to the Drupal project, mostly with my own code as author/maintainer a few modules, but I do on occasion contribute code to the core project and other modules, and one can find me quite sporadically contributing in the forums and support mailing lists.

Currently, I live in a 1907 farmhouse in the valley of New Creek, WV. I’ve been married to my wife, Jeanette, since 1992. We have three children, all boys, Anthony (1994), Timothy (1996), and Nicholas (2000). When I’m not having fun hanging around my immediate family, I’m having fun hanging around my parents and siblings, of which I am the oldest of five. They mostly still live close by, though a couple are still in college at WVU in Morgantown, and my brother Greg also works there as an academic advisor. My dad retired from teaching following the 2004-05 school year, and my mother teaches in the Mineral County public school system still.

I used to follow politics, and some of you are probably getting to the One Inch Frame thinking you’re going to Perpetually Disgruntled, my old (mostly) political blog that was at the same URL. In the weeks preceding the U. S. “General Election” of 2004 something in my brain exploded, and I left politics behind, and have not looked back. I remain, though, just as much confused and disgusted with the political Left as well as the Right. I suppose I am left of center on most issues.