A Little Bit About me, Brett Roby(.com)
About the author
Every site needs an "about me page," right?
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First, the basics. It's always good to start with family! I've been married to my wonderful wife for over six years now. We have two boys: our first-born is now seven years old; our second is closing in on four years old. I'm glad we're referring to his age in years and not months now; counting months is lame! She takes care of the boys a lot more than I do, which I really appreciate. I know I don't say that enough, but I'm working toward showing that appreciation more. Her mother watches the kids all day while we're at work, which I swear is the most helpful thing in the world. I don't know what we'd do without her, since typical babysitting fees are outrageous. Eventually I'll make enough money that my wife will be able to stay home while the kids are at school and drive around a BMW SUV and go all-out soccer mom, but that won't happen for a while.
Our first-born, Rollin — pronounced raw-lin like Henry Rollins or Jimmy Rollins but without the "s" — is playing in his third season of baseball and really love it. He's also doing very well at the sport (which I think also really helps keep his interest). This, of course, makes me proud. I'm a huge baseball fan, so this is an easy way for us to spend time together. He's always wanting to practice hitting after I get home from work. There's no feeling in the world like having your son asking you to play ball with him. Guys out there who don't have kids: kids are worth it just for that alone! He also plays soccer in the fall and has played for three seasons so far; that is also a ton of fun. As rambunctious as he is when he's in the house or at the park, you'd think that he'd excel at soccer — and you would be right. He is really learning how to utilize his energy out on the field, and is definitely blossoming into his own athleticism. I'd like to get him going on swimming eventually, because he could use the discipline. He's always talking about basketball, so I think we'll try and start him up on that this summer after baseball ends.
Our youngest son, Ryan, is really quite a handful. It doesn't help that he has his older, crazy brother as an influence, but I swear this kid is a breed unto himself. His energy is really fun to watch sometimes. It's definitely hard to harness all that energy for good, but hey he's just a toddler. I guess we just need to be patient. He's really into Tom and Jerry, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and Word World, the latter two of which are great shows for learning. It's funny how everything is computer graphics now; back when we were kids we watched grainy cartoons like Voltron and Transformers. We also had crappy plastic toys like GI Joe and The Animal. At least we ushered in the Nintendo generation... so booyah! But I digress. Oh yeah, shall I bring up Legos?
My brother, John, is getting up there in age, and over the last five years or so we've gotten a lot closer as our interests have kind of merged. I'm about eight years older than he is, so growing up we weren't super-close. I'm glad that's changing now because it's nice to have a brother. If you looked at him then looked at me, you probably wouldn't guess we are brothers; it has happened many times in the past! But aside from our exterior differences, we share a lot of similar interests.
I've got a page just for him on my site. He and I are always creating [seemingly] random stuff, so I guess you could say we're inventors to an extent. We both love to modify existing products or come up with super-customized things. He and I always bounce ideas off each other for our crazy projects and I think as a result we generally come up with something better in the end. Right now, if I'm not mistaken, he's working on building his own rifle from the ground-up, which is costing him a pretty penny. The experience is good, though, as he's learning the intricacies of assembling complex machinery. It's also requiring him to use some higher level tools, which is always nice! (I love tools) He's also working on a mod that'll turn his original monster-sized XBOX into something that is about the size of a top loader NES; perhaps a tad smaller. I'll probably be hosting that soon, when he's done, as it'll go nicely with a couple mods/inventions of my own that I've done and am working on currently as well.
I've also got two other siblings: one sister who is 14 years old and a freshwoman in high school, and a brother who is eight years old. They get enough attention elsewhere, though, so I'm leaving them out of this — at least for now. 
A quick shoutout goes to my father in-law, who got me into computers about nine years ago — shortly after I met (who is now) my wife. I've really come a long way since then, and quite frankly computers and all things geek are now a huge part of my life. Without his guidance, this site wouldn't exist. He and I are pretty close, and I consider him to be every bit of a father figure to me.
Another quick shoutout to my stepdad, under whose tutelage and parenting I partook from the ages of about six years old until 14. I moved away from him and my Scotts Valley childhood neighborhood at about 14, but I consider him to be my dad, and many — if not all — of my "handyman" traits come from him. I owe a lot to him and I love him a lot.
To the Barry, Emanuel, Abraham, and Gonzales families: you guys are the best!
...and of course: I love mom!
I love being and staying active. My active lifestyle is greatly aided by my wife taking care of the kids so much. Without that, I don't know what I'd do. I work out in some fashion every day of the week. I don't mean "every day" in the normal person's definition, which is something to the effect of "usually I work out after work if I'm not too tired." I mean every day. I lift weights on average five times per week (I shoot for six but sometimes the schedule doesn't permit), and I do cardio seven days per week. The only time I skip cardio is when the gym is closed due to holiday (e.g. Christmas), and on those days I'll usually end up going for a bike ride or a run.
I've been playing sports my entire life, and I have a lot of things in my life to thank for team sports. They've instilled some very good values and a work ethic that I'm pretty certain I wouldn't have attained had I not had them in my life. Needless to say, I'm a big proponent of team sports. I don't even care which sport you're talking about (no, I don't really like hockey as a personal favorite, but team sports is team sports); they're just huge for the development of a kid's psyche, and they help greatly with social and mental learning that you just can't get elsewhere. I'm not an expert in this field, but I'll argue the point until I die that a kid needs team sports in their life growing up. You don't even need to be good at that particular sport — as long as you participate and learn fundamentals of the game (good for discipline later in life), winning and losing (good for understanding how to roll with ups and downs that you encounter later in life), playing together on a team (good for learning how to interact in a job or scholastic environment) — then you will be leaps and bounds ahead of kids who haven't had the experience of team sports. By the way, I'm using the term "team sports" semi-loosely here. I really should be saying something more along the lines of "extracurricular activities in a group environment," but that's obviously a mouthful. Things like ballet dancing, gymnastics, even chess club and some of the other more obscure things count in this context. "Sports" like baseball, soccer, swimming, et al. was/is just my medium.
Now that I'm "old," I am a pretty avid softball player. I've been playing for about seven years now, but that doesn't mean I've been on seven teams. I've probably been on about 30. That is no joke. Coming from a baseball background, I really took to softball well, both in skill and enjoyment of the game. Obviously it's not quite as intense as baseball is, but it's a good substitute. I've been on several winning softball teams, which is a friggin' blast. For some reason, winning a cheapo Hanes Beefy-T with the same screen print on it that is used year after year for the championship shirt is just as rewarding as winning a trophy was in Little League! Go figure. Men and their awards, I guess... You adult sports league guys know exactly what I mean!
I am currently in a bit of a softball semi-retirement stage. I had a bad year from a personal performance standpoint last season, and so I'm trying to just take it easy this year. My David Lyng-sponsored team is kicking butt right now without me, which is bittersweet. I mean of course I want them to win, but at the same time I'd like to be there with them, helping out. Maybe that's a selfish take, but anyone who knows me knows I'm a competitor to a t and also a team player to a fault. Nick the Sports Guy and I have been on about four or five championship teams together, including a few with the DL team. I'll jump back on the DL bandwagon in summer. One of my DL teammates likes to write "press releases" before each game, which are generally pretty funny and are always embellished a great deal — not flat-out fiction, but stretched truths to say the least. I'll be hosting those press releases soon, as I have kept them all!
I'm kind of playing with a co-ed team right now with my boy Gregsauce, which is fun and keeps me pacified. I have also won a few championships with Greg and the Sasquatches.
After I graduated high school and was done with that lifestyle, I picked up the sport of basketball — and I've been hooked ever since. I really lack the fundamentals of most guys who grew up playing the game, but I'm learning. Fortunately I have enough athletic ability to compensate for what I lack (funda)mentally when it comes to the game of basketball. I know a lot of people probably think that b-ball players are just burnout pot-smokers, but there's a lot more to it than meets the eye. There are a lot of things that go along with the game that make it a heck of a lot easier if you know about them. I know very few of the tricks of the trade. As such, I don't put up great offensive numbers. I don't pretend that I'm great at basketball, but I am a pretty good spot-up shooter and of course I can jump pretty well. Funny aside about being a good jumper: when people see me dunking and don't know my "true basketball skill level," they automatically assume that I'm going to be some sort of superstar player because I'm white and not incredibly tall but can still dunk. Bad assumption!
I'm currently on the highest level b-ball league in our area, and our team is pretty good. We picked up a few new players for this season that allowed us to move into the higher division. Our team is yet to gel, but I think if we run the same squad back next season, great results will ensue. I am very excited about this team, and I've said that a number of times. One of my teammates shares several interests with me outside of basketball, like cars, sweet kicks, and is a great customizer/inventor in his own right. I'll be hosting his works at some point soon in the future, and I'll link from here as well.
I was fortunate to get up to the slopes five times this past winter for some great snowboarding trips. I went twice with my sister in-law and her husband (who I guess is now my brother in-law, techincally speaking), a couple times with those two and my cousin, and then my last run of the season with just my boss. I had a ton of fun on each trip and I cannot wait until we get to get out there again. Weeks like the one we just had (May 11th — May 17th), in which temperatures easily averaged 80°F, really enforce the fact that winter is over and that it's time to start thinking about softball a little more seriously again! During one of the trips when we went to Bear Valley, the snowboard park was grooomed perfectly, and I was able to take a couple jumps and land them quite nicely. It was during this trip that I had a bit of an "epiphany" (if you will) and "just got it" with regards to what I enjoy most about snowboarding: going off jumps and doing tricks. It's funny because the whole going fast thing is pretty fun and I thought that was my thing, but then when I went off that jump it was like tunnel vision and I knew that was it. I bought myself a nice all-around style Santa Cruz board (the Twinza Platinum in 159cm), but it was damaged during shipping, so I sold it. I was really looking forward to getting out and riding that thing, so to open it and see it dinged up on the rail was really disheartening — to say the least. Hopefully if the checkbook (A.K.A. "wife") allows, I'll get a board before the next season, because my hand-me-down board has seen better days. I love that board, though; but it's just time to let her go.
I'm going to stop talking about sports and my involvement hereto so that this doesn't come off as a gloat-fest. I'm just big on sports and enjoy playing them as often as I can... 'nuff said!
I work for pretty much the most awesome company in the world. What we do is very specialized, so I'll try to explain it in the most basic terms possible. We manufacture (and design) a system that removes the plastic from computer chips in order to expose the internal circuit board. This is done so that failure analysis can be performed on the sample on a microscopic level. The process is called "decapsulation," and we are the world leaders in this equipment. The process of decapsulation is a huge part of the semiconductor industry, as all integrated circuits must be quality-controlled and tested for failures. In the event that a company has a catastrophic or widespread failure to one of their ICs, it is incredibly important for them to be able to get inside the sample and determine the cause of the failure — and fix it. We work with and for some of the biggest players in the world for electronics, such as Sony, Panasonic, Intel, Motorola, AMD, Texas Instruments, nVidia — you name the company; they probably have a system of ours. We also have a newer system that does die delayering, which is a totally different process and one I'm not about to attempt to explain here, and since it is a new technology we are still working on getting it out in the field because not all companies are sold on its process (most companies are still stuck in the old-skool methods of die delayering). A few big companies are on board with it, though, such as Texas Instruments.
I started as an Applications Specialist, which involved running the decapsulation system and performing what are called "proof of concepts." Basically what that entails is a company sends in some samples they're interested in opening for failure analysis purposes, and if we can get the sample opened without destroying it, then they will very likely purchase one of our systems. I would then write detailed reports with the procedure required to open the sample, along with pictures and diagrams and such. It's pretty geeky, I know, but my attention to detail and artistic approach to the job led me to where I am now with the company, as well as contributed to leading me in certain directions with my extracurricular interests.
I now am the sales and marketing manager, as the general title that goes on my business card, but basically I am the boss' right-hand man. I no longer run the applications unless a dire situation arises, such as when Nate isn't in the office, or if the pro — that's me — is needed. Nate has been working here for almost two years now, and between the two of us, there is no application we can't handle. So now I mostly take care of: managing our domestic salesman, managing the overseas sales (with which the boss still helps me quite a bit, as the techniques and nuances of international communications require a great deal of learning), managing our applications specialists (who are Nate, Dylan, and Greg (Greg does the OmniEtch applications), and taking care of all the marketing materials that we do. One thing that "bugs" me about my current position — and that's putting it harshly because it doesn't really bug me — is that I am now at my desk for much longer during the day than I was when I was the one running the applications. I think because of this, some of my co-workers think that I'm just farting around on my computer or something (i.e. not working), which is kind of a natural thing to think when you remember some of the employees from previous regimes. Anyone who knows me, though, knows that's not the case — for the most part! I work pretty hard at my job.
I'm especially proud of the logo revamp that I did, which you can see here (opens in a new window). We now use this logo exclusively, and one thing of which I'm particularly stoked is that this is now a huge sign on our building. I downsampled the image so it loads quickly, and as such it is a litte bit pixelated and the image's colors aren't true to the actual logo, but you get the idea. Here is what it looks like on our building. This shot was taken at dusk using a 4.0MP Nikon CoolPix set on a tripod with the flash off (oops! is that my car?).
Over the course of late last year and the beginning of this year, I've been sent by Nisene to a few Peak Potentials courses by T. Harv Ecker that have really opened up my outlook on many things. I am forever grateful for the opportunity to go to these courses, because not only are they not cheap, they are life-changing. The information you get from them is well worth the thousands of dollars it costs to attend, but quite frankly I don't have that kind of cash to throw around — yet... I came away with many great epiphanies (if you will) from these courses and would like to attend some others. One of the big ones I got from "The World's Greatest Marketing Seminar" was how the internet works in conjunction with selling product and establishing and maintaining a network for business flow. It was why I decided to start a website. From that seminar, I kind of decided that I was going to somehow figure out how I can start making money by offering people things that I was great at doing as a service. Since my website was started, I have had inquiries from several start-ups for me to design their sites. I foresee a few of those jobs coming pretty soon, which I'll add to me résumé and hopefully someday soon create my own business in website design. I'd like to get a few of my artsy buddies involved, but that will come in due time. I have an agreement with digital.forest that I will get 10% of revenue generated by all webhosting accounts that were acquired through my reference. Hopefully I can start getting some money for that soon. I recommend digital.forest to everyone because they really do rock. I'm not just saying that either.
I owe a lot to my employers, as they've pretty much taken me under their wings and allowed me to grow quite a bit in the seven years I've been working for them. I started in 2001, with my computer skills pretty much starting and ending with "knowing how to create and save a Microsoft Word document," and now I'm writing my own CSS and have gotten quite good with Adobe products; to say nothing of what I now know of the Microsoft Office tools (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint being the main ones). I didn't even know how to truly use the internet when I started here. I was pretty raw, business-wise as well. Now I know a thing or two, to say the least.
I love video games. The funny thing is that even though I love to play them, I really don't make enough time to do so anymore. Part of the reason is because we're not allowing our sons to play right now, so that pretty much means I can only play when they're in bed. I went on a bit of a video game hiatus between the years of 1999 and 2001 or so, but then my wife got me a Nintendo GameBoy Advance (or GBA for the nerds). Ever since then, it's been back on pretty strongly. Even though I don't have any of the most current consoles, I do have a Nintendo DS, which I really like playing when I'm not geeking out on something else. One thing on which I recently geeked out was getting a Dell small form factor PC totally loaded with my favorite old-skool emulators, then hooking that up to my TV. The setup works really well, and if you've got a high-speed connection and can stand to wait a few seconds while the animated image loads, check out this page. I can't wait to get the setup going on a high-definition plasma TV; 50" or so ought to do the trick.
Fortunately, I have also been able to keep the passion alive by creating a few awesome video game-related projects over the past few years that have really enhanced my video game enjoyment. A couple in particular are great concepts that I think people all over the gaming world could use, and they're things that eventually I could sell and make a little cash. As of right now, they're just prototypes, but conceptually they are pretty solid ideas. I'm in the middle of one such project right now, and I think this one might be my best one yet. I don't want to give it away just yet, but it's related to the emulators on my PC that I mentioned in the previous paragraph. So stay tuned; I should be posting images and the project's synopsis within a couple days (I'm still getting my website all fixed up after the new design, including writing this "about me" page).
I also really love music, in a number of ways. I once was pretty OCD on learning bass guitar, and I went pretty far with learning its intricacies before pretty much putting it down for good once I met my wife. That's not to blame her for my not playing bass anymore; it's just that I choose to spend my time doing other things now and that was one of the things that got cut out. It just so happened that it was around the same time we started going out. I still have my bass lying around at home on its tripod/stand thing, and I keep it dusted, but I haven't really rocked that thing in years. Eventually I will come back to it, and in time I would like to pick up classical guitar. I am fascinated by that playing technique.
To pick a favorite genre of music for me would be like trying to pick a favorite son. I really like a lot of different types of music, and I couldn't dare choose one. If I had to generalize, I could say that classic rock is my favorite, and although that genre is pretty broad, it's still a bit to narrowly focused for my musical taste. I like original shredders like Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, classic metal gods like Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, 1980s mega metalheads like Metallica, and the occasional hair band. Don't forget your protypical 1980s and 1990s phenom-shredders like Yngwie Malmsteen, Michael Angelo-Batio, and of course Joe Satriani. Then there's funk, some old-skool rap the likes of SugarHill Gang, and R & B from bands like Kool & the Gang, Earth, Wind, and Fire, and so on and so on. I'm also really big on progressive type music like Alan Parsons Project, Niacin, and Dream Theater, to name very few. There's also bands like Rush, Blue Oyster Cult, Stever Miller Band, and so on and so on. On occasion, I'll go through periods where I'll delve into the world of bass prodigy music, which is typcially and quite generically classified as "jazz fusion." I have recently discovered Dennis Chambers, Stanley Jordan, Stanley Clarke, and Garaj Majal; let's not forget about Stu Hamm and Beaver Felton. All excellent bands with really interesting, unique sounds. I feel like I'm shortchanging my music library by naming so few of my interests, but it is what it is. I guess you could say I like music that is instrumentally complex, generally speaking. To cap it off, my favorite band is Led Zeppelin.
My love for music is the main reason why you'll hear so many soundbites on my website when browsing. Right now there aren't many, but that's due mostly to the overhaul. You can bet I'll be adding several over the next week or so.
I am pretty big on computers nowadays, and have been for the past couple years at least. I am the ultimate PC/Mac crossy. I use both quite frequently. While I wouldn't say that the split is an even 50/50, I do use both quite often. I prefer Macs for most of my media editing and artsy design stuff (such as this website and all Adobe projects that I do), while I tend to prefer a PC for internet browsing, emulator running, and as a media server/handler for my entertainment center.
Eventually I'll probably swap out my current tower that has a 1.8GHz AMD processor and 512MB RAM with something a little more modern and use it as a server and data center (albeit on a small scale) for my personal electronic files like family movies and pictures. I am currently doing that with my existing PC tower, but to be perfectly honest, I am kind of worried about how much longer it'll last. Fortunately I run backups of the data from time to time and store it on DVDs and CDs, so hopefully that media lasts a while. Since that tower has the largest hard drives of any of the four computers in my house, I use it to store and share out videos that I can stream to other TVs and/or computers throughout the house. Sort of like AppleTV on gone berserk, because my method is way better.
Here's a breakdown of the current computers at my house:
| Computer | Operating System | Processor | RAM | Description |
Web Browsing |
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Web Browsing |
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| Dell Optiplex SX260 (Small Form Factor) | Windows XP Professional | 2.4GHz Intel Pentium 4 | 2.0GB | Entertainment Center, Emulators |
| Dell Optiplex SX280 (Small Form Factor) | Windows XP Professional | 3.2GHz Intel Pentium 4 | 2.0GB | Entertainment Center, Emulators |
Upgraded from 466MHz | "Project Computer" |
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| iBook G4 | OSX 10.4.9 | 1.42GHz PowerPC G4 | 1GB | All Artsy Design, Media Editing |
| MacBook Pro (coming soon) | OSX 10.6.x | 2.66GHz Intel i7 Dual-core with Hyperthreading | 4GB | All Artsy Design, Media Editing |
It all started with the help of my wife's dad. Without his presence, I don't know where I'd be in the computer world. My guess is I wouldn't be that into it. I was super-defiant about learning computers when the internet and technology was exploding in the mid- to late-1990s. I kind of wished I would have jumped on the bandwagon sooner, but I just didn't. Oh well.
Kind of a funny, ironic story: my mom is a computer operator and she handles anything computer at the County Building in Santa Cruz. She's been a computer techy for years — as long as I can remember and probably pretty close to my entire life — and I never really "got it" until relatively recently. But for the longest time, I just wasn't following what my mom did for a living because it was so foreign to me. The story that I'm trying to get to is that about two years ago, her PC was ultra-infected with spyware and viruses. I told her we had an extra computer at work and that I'd rebuild it for her and let her have it. So after all these years, her computerally-challenged son is building her a computer! That was pretty good times for sure. Irony to the max, I guess. Now my brother and I are the big computer geeks and have sort of overtaken Mom, although there are probably some savvy veteran tricks she has on us.
It's no secret: if you know me, you know I'm huge on cars. I have always really enjoyed looking at and dreaming about fancy cars. I think this stems from my childhood days when my dad (both my real dad and my stepdad) always had kickass cars around and were always taking such great care of them. My dad was more of a used car salesman, while my stepdad was more of a mechanic and restorer; he still is to this day, in fact. I cannot remember a time when there wasn't some ridiculously hot sportscar of some kind in the driveway either being repaired (in the case of my stepdad) or up for sale (in the case of my dad). I guess you could say that the infatuation with cars was engrained in me since as far as I know that is not a genetic trait.
I currently have a car that is without a doubt the fanciest thing I've ever owned. My wife doesn't really like the fact that I got such a nice car, and unfortunately it is a bone of contention in our relationship. I put a lot of money down on the car, though, and its payments are more than affordable because of it. Not only that, but we actually have equity in the car, which is not something we can say about our condo.
At any rate, that thing is my baby, and I have modified its exterior quite a bit since I got it. I spent a heck of a lot of time shopping for "the perfect car" when I was looking to buy, and after that extensive search I settled on my TL. I really, really, really wanted to get a 350Z, but I tried to do my best to do what was right and get a more family-oriented automobile. So I went with the four-door sedan. It is definitely one of the nicer sedans I've driven in, but I still wish I would have gotten that Z. I got the four-door because I envisioned more family excursions than the one or two we've gone on since I've purchased it, but hopefully that will change soon.
I've got tons of pictures of it, but the best showcase of her that is online as of right now can be seen here. As you will see, it went from a pretty plain (although nice) looking bone stock TL to my one-off special. All ideas were of my own conception, of which I'm also quite proud. I'm a member of a pretty popular online forum for Acura enthusiasts called Acurazine, and actually a lot of the drivers on that site aren't into my work. The obligatory "the pictures don't do it justice" defense is usually cited by me, but that really is the case. A lot of people think it doesn't look sporty enough, and they therefore don't like it. The funny thing is that's exactly what I was going for: I wanted to take away that sportiness and step it up to something that had a more luxurious look. The car, as stock, is kind of caught in the middle between sports and luxury car; I just pushed it over the fence toward luxury instead of trying to go sportier. The main reason for that being that if I wanted a sports car, I would have bought sportscar. Also, exterior modifications don't make your car sportier — they only make it appear sportier, which is like the worst thing you can do in my opinion. Have you ever seen that car rolling down the road with tons of performance-type stickers all over it, but without any performance modifications? That's bad. If you're going for sporty, modify the engine, suspension, and brakes. Better yet, don't bother doing that one a front-wheel drive car; it's a waste of time. Go get yourself a sportscar! OK, I'll get off my soapbox now.
I think that's enough for now!
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