Good idea Kelby. I'll go second. Sorry if this is a yawn for most people
My name is Matt Miller. I was born in St. Louis, MO and lived in Festus, MO (my parents still live there) until I was 18 and went off to college at the University of Missouri. When I graduated, I wanted to move somewhere out west. I ended up doing my graduate work at the University of Arizona in Tucson. I fell in love with the desert and I miss it greatly. I graduated from there in 2001 with a Master's in Applied Mathematics. I promptly went to work for Raytheon Missile Systems, also in Tucson. I worked there for 5 years as a radar software engineeer while living in Sahuarita, AZ until I got an offer from a friend of mine from graduate school to work with him on web stuff. I taught myself PHP, MySQL and Apache (already knew a fair amount of Linux) and took the plunge from a safe secure job to an uncertain future. That was 5 years ago and I've never regretted it!
I'm part or full owner of a few websites including
http://www.summitpost.org,
http://www.mixmap.com, and, of course,
http://www.flytrapcare.com and I am involved in many other web sites.
True story - I met my wife Leah on July 26th, 2006 on an airplane when I was on my way to a friend's wedding in Montana. We fell madly in love. I never believed in love at first sight, but that's what it was! I packed up my stuff in Arizona and moved to Montana two weeks later. Leah and I got married on February 14th, 2007. We married ourselves in a hot spring in the middle of the woods in Idaho.
I loved living in Missoula, MT and still miss it from time to time. But we had to move to Boulder in July 2007 so that Leah could do her mandatory internship to complete her PhD in psychology. We ended up staying there for two years because Leah got a job where she did her internship. We both like Boulder in many ways, but neither of us wanted to settle down there. So we started looking for a new place to try living that neither of us had experienced before. We ended up settling on Ashland, OR and we moved here at the end of July 2009. I'm loving it so far!
As for hobbies, I have a ton. I used to hunt and fish a lot, but I haven't done much the last few years, but I really want to do some salmon fishing this fall. I still make it back to Missouri every spring to do some turkey hunting and visit my family. I miss having elk meat in the freezer though. I love putting together computers. I basically enjoy learning anything technical and learning stuff in general. I play some video games, mostly turn based strategy games like Civilization or first person shooters. Obviously I grow a lot of carnivorous plants and that obsession has pretty much taken most of my time lately. I love to watch and play all sports with the possible exception of hockey and soccer, but I'll even watch them from time to time. I'm watching my favorite baseball team, the Cardinals, lose to the Dodgers right now...so sad, but it isn't over yet! Love fantasy football! I really got into tissue culture this year too. I've done a ton of running through my life and I love being active, especially in the mountains. I did track and cross country through high school and continued from there. I did a marathon in 1999. And I still run about 3 days a week now.
Some of my biggest athletic achievements include:
- Finished Heart of America Marathon in 1999 in 3 hours 40 minutes
- Ran a half marathon in 2008 in 1 hour 29 minutes.
- Ran the 2008 Pikes Peak Ascent (over 13 miles and almost 6000 feet of vertical ascent) in 3 hours and 18 minutes.
- Have done multiple triathlons culminating in my 2008 Ironman Vineman Triathlon finish in 13 hours 22 minutes - Photo finish here
- A lot of rock climbing including all 54 of the peaks in Colorado over 14,000 feet (called the Colorado 14ers). A video of me on what most consider the hardest 14er, Capitol Peak. The part I'm on here is a very exposed section called the Knife Edge: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qynSGzLLws
- A 42 mile rim-to-rim-to-rim run of the Grand Canyon (South Rim to North Rim and back) in 12 hours and 30 minutes. I think this is the most amazing run I've ever done.
- Finished the 2008 San Juan Solstice 50 miler (billed as America's toughest 50 miler with most of the course above 10,000 feet in elevation) in 12 hours 36 minutes.
My new exciting adventure is trying to start an online carnivorous plant nursery. It's a ton of work, but I'm excited about the future for it. I've got a lot of building of stock to do so I can offer many people awesome plants, but I think I'm on my way with the help of tissue culture. It should be an exciting next few years. For paying the bills, I do have a "full-time" job working from home doing contract web work for an orthopedic surgeon out of Missoula, Montana for his many websites.
Anyway, I'm sure that's way more information than most people wanted, but yeah, that's me...Matt. Oh and here's a photo of Leah and I in Boulder on top of Red Rocks: