About

My name is Curtis Autery. I'm a husband, a three-time father (all girls), and a software developer. This is me in a random but typical situation, sharing a snack with my youngest, Adelaide, contentedly perched on my knee.

What's this blog for?

It's for me to talk about things I find interesting. Lately that's recreational coding projects. I also talk about my family, but less so since I discovered the fine art of posting baby pictures on Facebook. My address there, by the way, is just "autery".

What's with the hair?

The hair is a good allegory for what kind of person I am. I'm devoted to my wife, and my hair is my wedding ring. Seriously... I don't wear an actual ring. She asked me to grow it out, which I've been doing since early 2010, and it reminds me of her.

I'm in IT, the only business area where working stiffs can grow their hair out and still be considered professionals. I currently work for AEP, where I've been writing integration widgets since 2003. I work with banks and the energy trading market, and work seamlessly between MVS, Unix, Windows, SQL, SOAP, Java, perl, webMethods, GnuPG, network sniffers, MQ, Apache, Gentran, and Javascript.

Lastly, the hair is polarizing, and helps me classify people. There are people to whom it doesn't seem to register, others who are more dismissive of me, the occasional "hair groupie" who insists on making some sort of commentary or who I see looking away quickly as I turn in their direction ("no no, I wasn't staring, honest!!"), and, my favorite, the old hippies who go out of their way to help me and who I instantly feel camaraderie with.

What's with the blog name?

Her:

Wings

It was a comment my oldest daughter, Anastasia, made about a sunset when she was 4. "That's medicine for the sky". Stunning, and from a 4 year old! Stacey was my first love, more of a genius than I'll ever be. She'll be 17 in a few months, and in her short time on Earth she's been a world travler, vocalist, thespian, athlete, hospital volunteer, athletic trainer for her high school football team, and is destined to have an outstanding career in sports medicine.

For the next generation, I'm fully confident I'll have similar stories to tell about Scout when she turns 17 in 8 years, Adelaide in 15 years... and did I mention we're eager to bring baby 4 into the world this September?

What miscellany do you feel compelled to tell strangers?

I'm an advocate for women's equality, and occasionally snipe at my acquaintances and online friends for their habitual sexism, especially when assuming I'm a fellow conspirator. I'm an advocate for naturalizing the life of a baby: childbirth doesn't belong in hospitals, babies belong in arms, not in carriers, and their food doesn't come from a store. The best food for a baby is its mother's milk, and formula is a poor substitute. Moms should breastfeed in public and tell anyone who objects to go to hell.

I abhor bureaucracies, consumerism, 3D, department stores, willful ignorance, manufactured entertainment, cable television, hubris, and the phrase "I'm not technical".

I love mathy/geeky side projects, which is how I occupy myself with whatever free time I can scrape together. If I enjoy a project or experiment enough, I write about it here. My résumé link enumerates several of the good ones.

I'm not sure what I am religiously. The universe is pretty big and awe-inspiring, and it would be neat if there was some sort of overseeing entity, however it seems pretty unlikely that it would look like the Abrahamic god, would be interested in my adherence to prescribed morality, or of the general well-being of people on a single planet on the edge of one of a hundred billion galaxies, and would interface with us through revealed scripture. It seems more likely that most of scripture isn't a factual account, but was supposed to inspire us through allegory.

I identify most strongly with Buddhism, but even there, the deeper you go, the more you see mysticism, gods bouncing around on Mount Meru, and chasing the enlightenment dragon. So, I make my own path through spirituality, taking a "cleave the wood and I am there" from here, a "suffering comes from desire" from there, and mash it all together into a confusing mess with one goal: be a better man.