Who am I?
In a nutshell, I’m a 33 year old Swedish information security professional with a passion for electronic music, cultural preservation, games and a great many other things. I live, work and play in New York City. I was born and raised in Sweden and I’ve been in the United States for 11 years.
Where am I from?
I was born and grew up in a small town called Motala in Sweden. After graduating the Swedish equivalent of high-school I went on to study what’s called “Natural Sciences”. It’s a mixture of biology, chemistry, physics, math and computer science. I only completed the first year of this in Motala before I changed direction and moved to Stockholm. This is where I finished my degree in what was then termed “New Media”. I studied cinematography, broadcasting, video editing, direction, photography, 3D animation, visual arts, calligraphy, theater, acting, special effects makeup and more. This is where I discovered the marvels of Unix.
After finishing my degree, I once again shifted gears and moved to the US. Straight from the liberal country of Sweden into the heart of the bible belt to Kingsville, TX in south Texas. It was a bit of a culture shock at first but I tend to adapt well to change. After about 6 months or so I moved to San Antonio, TX where I found my first job in the US working for a small Internet Service Provider. During this time is when I delved deeper into Unix and decided to make a career of it. It got off to a rocky start with some parts of it being spent working out of a makeshift trailer in rural Bulverde, TX that served as the local ISP and the local newspaper.
I’m going to take the liberty and fast forward a bit here. Lots of stuff happened that you might learn about at some point but for now, I’m leaving you in the dark. From San Antonio I moved to San Mateo, CA and worked in Redwood City for a company devoted to cancer research. I wasn’t there for more than a year and moved back to Sweden for a time. Here I worked as a consultant for various companies for little less than a year before skipping back across the puddle to Dallas, TX.
Didn’t stay long though, less than a year again! Then it was off to Munich, Germany where I worked for a scumbag of a boss who later ended up getting convicted for embezzling tons of investors in a fake investment firm that he started. Needless to say, bad juju. I was only there for 5 months before I found myself back in Dallas.
Thankfully this time I stayed put for a good 5 years. This second stint in Dallas is also when I met my beautiful and wonderful soul mate whom I still have the pleasure of waking up next to every morning. I spent the last 4 of those 5 years working for a great startup company that I helped build the infrastructure of from the ground up. Unfortunately, it came to an end with a hostile takeover and we moved to Baltimore, MD where I tried my hand at working in the academic environment. This turned out to feel like it would be a good fit in 20-30 years but for now, it’s far too laid back.
So now, 2 years after having moved to Baltimore, I am living in New York City. Well, I live in Brooklyn and work in “the city”. That’s a lot of stuff crammed in to the last 11 years. I wouldn’t change any of it though since those experiences have shaped who I am today and ultimately I’m happy with where I am now. It’s been a long term dream of mine to live in New York ever since I was a wee teenager in Sweden. I’m here now and it feels great!
What do I do?
Professionally, I’ve been a Unix systems administrator and information security nut for a little over 14 years. I have the privilege of working with one of my hobbies. I got my first computer at age 7 and have never had anything less than an unhealthy obsession with buttons, blinkenlights, video games and computers. I’ve had some really bad jobs and some great ones. I’m happy with the one I have now :)
I’m also a DJ. I spin good, groovy, psychedelic, funky, chunky electronic music. I am not particularly fond of categorizing myself into any one genre of music but if you held me up at gunpoint I would tell you I spin psychedelic trance and electro house. You can check out some of my DJ mixes in the audio section of my DJ site.
What else?
That’s about it really. If you want to get in touch with me, check the Social page.