Biography

僕は誰?
Who am I?

Around the beginning of the semester I ask myself this question. It's an evolving answer that changes quite frequently. My name is Troy Hurteau, I also go by John Troy to try and alleviate some confusion, since I am called by my middle name. I'm a 28 year old university IT specialist For the past decade my primary mode of identification has been as a "Web Developer".

I started my career working for the College of Engineering at NC State University with Dr. Ellen McDaniel. I completed my Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science while working there (2003). I keep considering graduate school, but so far haven't found the time. My main academic interest right now is in technical communication such as Digital Media Rhetoric, or in process analysis such as Industrial Systems Engineering. I am a very logical process driven individual. Being a jack-of-all-trades, my focus is on tying complementary disciplines together in a way that harmonizes the efficiencies of both.

In 2007 I switched departments within the university and now work for the NCSU Libraries in the IT department. I just recently (at the beginning of the Fall 2007 semester) started this new job, so it is a bit too early to put into words how things are going other than "preliminarily promising" ;D

Originally I'm from Whiteville. Even while growing up in a small town, I developed really cosmopolitan interests. I grew up using computers (Commodore 64 and Amigas) from a young age and enjoyed hobbies like D&D, which were controversial to many people there. Even still I'm a bit of a country boy, although very much still a geek, at heart and would never really fit into the big city life. I first moved to Raleigh in 1997 for college and can't imagine wanting to move anywhere else. It's big, but not too big and close to family, but not too close.

Since 2004 I have lived in between Knightdale and Raleigh (NC), right off the Neuse River. It's a quiet and established neighborhood, but things in Knightdale are developing quickly. I am very excited about the many business moving into the road developments that have made visiting friends and shopping a lot more convenient.

I met my husband in 2005 and we were married in 2006 (exactly a year and six months after we met). We had our wedding ceremony in Toronto Canda because we fealt it was important to have a marraige that was legally recognized somewhere (even if not in this country yet). We had our wedding reception back home so friends and family could more easily attend. Donnie and I plan on adopting, probably a couple of open adoptions, in the future.

More so than any single skillset, I identify myself as a modern jack-of-all-trades. I have a little bit of artistic ability, and like playing around with musical composition, writing, programming and design. I love all forms of games: video games, role-playing games, and table top games to name a few types. I enjoy watching anime, though I watch very little broadcast/network TV any more. I'm very picky about the games and entertainment I spend my time on because time always seems in short supply these days. The game and entertainment industry is the field I want to work in eventually, designing or developing games. For now running and designing my own games gives me a method of building my ideas (story and system wise). I also work (though not very frequently recently) with a group on campus called Mimesis to develop content and architecture for truly AI driven games. In the short term future, I plan to build up my own publishing group for games, books, and virtual goods. I began developing 3D products for a chat program called IMVU in 2006 and it's turning out to be quite an adventure. The development of online community is one topic that interests me very much.

I like online games too, but they are costly and time consuming so I'm limiting myself to one at a time. For a while my favorite was Final Fantasy XI but a number of design flaws eventually turned me off. Ragnarok Online is one game I used to play but the publisher is clueless as to what customer service is and the game lacks depth. I tried ROSE, but it wasn't anything special. I play Guild Wars occasionally. I had originally turned my nose up at World of Warcraft, but some friends of mine got me into it and it was great for a while. I have put WoW on hold until they make Pandarans a playable race (which will probably be never). My online game activity has been very sparse lately. I am patiently awaiting the release (or demise) of Project Wiki, by Webzen

I like more traditional and face to face games too. I also play an ancient chinese game called Go (碁, which is based on the the japanese name for it). I have fallen out of practice lately, but I occasionally play online on a system called KGS (user name BoogiPanda) and the DragonGoServer (boogiepanda) or with one of the groups that play Go locally (though I've had no time for that lately). I also get together with the Dogwood and Cherry Blossom Club when I can to watch anime and with friends every month that has a fifth Friday to hang out and play games.

I'm a very big fan of the Megaman (Rockman in japan) game series, especially Rockman EXE. I am, in general, a big fan of Final Fantasy and many Square games, but they have done many things recently that annoy me. More recently, Zelda has become a more interesting series. Both N64 titles were very good and the first Game Cube title was excellent with an even more promising one on the way. I like games that are immersive adventures, so this is a very exciting time in video game development.

Anime and movies are my preferred source of entertainment. I don't find TV as practical as I used to there are so many great things on You Tube and I also enjoy renting through NetFlix. I like a wide variety of anime. I like some of the better kids shows like Card Captor Sakura, Hikaru no Go, and Angelic Layer. I also like more sophisticated action shows like 12 Kingdoms, Full Metal Alchemist, .hack//SIGN, Berserk, RahXephon and Noir and Abstract shows like Serial Experiments Lain, BoogiePop Phantom and Neon Genesis Evangelion. I also like some good comedies like FLCL and Chobits.

In a lot of ways I'm a homebody. I'm also a planner. Most of the things I want can be found at home, I even eat in more than I used to. I always want to know what happens next, so I often plan things out. I'm a stickler for sequential, chronological, or narrative order. As long as the order has some underlying structure I'm happy. I cannot stand to watch an episodic show out of order or miss a single second of a movie. I get annoyed when people don't follow "Tha Plan", and get really annoyed when I can't plan. I do at least like variety in my plans.

I have quite a few friends. It's not like one can have too many, but sometimes I feel bad that I don't have as much time to devote to each one as I would like. I also tend to value my solitary time, which I get very little of any more. Also, I'm not much of a talker unless you hit a topic that peaks my interest, so some people see me as antisocial. Those that really understand me know better. I used to have a few friends back in Whiteville, but so many have moved I can only think of a few now. There are many new friends in Raleigh, and my family now lives about an hour away in Mebane. It all goes back to online communities though, I'm starting to pick back up on old connections by finding people I used to know online.

I'm very interested in many aspects of the web. I like to ponder issues of site design and navigation, and mainly focus on applications that are highly experimental, or highly practical. I work with Macromedia (now Adobe unfortunately) products extensively. They make great products. I program in almost exclusively in PHP, though know many languages. I really liked LISP, but have become rusty.

I usually get together every week with my friends and play D&D, BESM, Exalted, or whatever role-playing game system we happed to be using at the time. I sometimes run games as well as play, I enjoyed both. I'd like to do them more than once a week, but time is so short. That's why I'm working on a way to run such games online. I think the trade-offs of the two ways of playing each have merit. I enjoy game theory and design a little more than web theory and design, but both are enjoyable.