I have two degrees in computer science and thirty years of industry experience, as well as miscellaneous coursework in multidisciplinary fields.I am the author of _The Ruby Way_, now in its third edition. In terms of US residents, I wasan "early adopter" of Ruby, first exposed to it in 1999. My book (2002) was the second English-languge book on Ruby. I attended the first Ruby conference in 2001 (as well as most later ones), and have spoken at nine conferences on three continents. I am expert in Ruby, but NOT proficient in "Ruby on Rails" nor in web development in general. Atpresent, I am honing my knowledge of Elixir.I am available for speaking, training, and possibly remote projects.I have published two short stories, and I wrote and produced two plays. I have written numeroustechnical articles and a couple of self-published space-related books.I have followed space and astronomy my entire life, and for a few years was a bit more than a spectator. In 2007 I joined MarsDrive, Inc., served as Vice President for three years before givingin to time pressures.Specialties: Ruby programming, technical writing, general writing