My name is Brian. Welcome to my life.

If you’ve stumbled on this site and snooped around a bit, you may be thinking, “Who’s this Brian, and what is this site about?”

Professionally, I’m a young teacher in an urban high school in New Jersey.  I graduated from RU with an M.Ed. in 2007, and since then I’ve been teaching high school Social Studies.

Along the way, I also got married and purchased my first home… but kids aren’t in the mix yet. It’s amazing how many times I get asked that question by my students.

While teaching is an all-consuming profession, I do find time to engage in a number of hobbies and pursuits. I’ve been known to indulge in gaming – both video games and tabletop games – from time to time. I enjoy writing and publishing things on the Internet, and to do so I’ve learned a lot about web design and web development. Then there are some other random aspects of my life – like cooking or learning to play the guitar.

This site is an attempt to roll all of those passions into one site, while dissociating them into separate spaces. As you navigate around the site, you’ll find four distinct places.

Teach Them Well

Like I said earlier, I’m a teacher by trade. It’s probably the single most time consuming aspect of my life, and therefore it takes pride of place in my online reflections.

In this section, you can read all about my life as a teacher – my quest to gain access to adequate technology, my search for useful resources, my struggle to help my students become proficient readers and effective citizens.

For a more in depth description of this part of the site, take a read through: What’s “Teach Them Well” All About?

Nerds at Play

As a child, I loved video games. I spent many – too many – a waking hour playing some computer game or another. Even in college I spent far more of my life than I like to admit playing World of Warcraft.

Although I’ve kicked the MMORPG habit (for the time being), I still indulge in games from time to time. When I do, I like to write about the experience. Sometimes it helps me reach clarity about how I really feel about a game, and sometimes I think I’ve got a little nugget of wisdom that should be added to the Internet’s repertoire.

You can expect to read about whatever video game I’m currently playing, or my return to tabletop games – like Warhammer Fantasy.

Check out the “Nerds at Play” About page for some more insight.

Nerds at Work

I originally intended to be a software developer/engineer. Somewhere along the way, I changed paths.

I did not, however, give up on computers and technology. As this blog might suggest, I’ve still got a keen interest in the internet, online publishing, web development, web design, and other related fields. It’s more a hobby than a profession, but it’s a passion nonetheless.

This site is a place for me to think through problems that I face in this online work, and to share the knowledge I’ve gained. When I first created it, I wrote a lot about PHP programming – and it really helped to crystallize whatever I was learning or working on.

In the future, I’ll probably focus more on web design and graphic design, but I wouldn’t rule out a return to scripting and programming. I would, however, rule out game design. It once was a dream, but I think I’ll just have to give that up.

Check out the “Nerds at Work” About page for some more insight.

Life of Brian

This final category is, well, whatever’s left over.

Some things deal with the maintenance of the site, but don’t fit neatly into one of the other spaces. Some things deal with my other hobbies – like cooking or music.

And some things are just bits of search engine bait that might not appeal to the average subscriber to one of the topic-specific feeds.

Heck, who knows what it’ll be about. I guess you’ll just have to read it.