A Brief Professional History:
(for real details, email me at kathrynNOSPAM@bradgoodman.com for my resume {take out the NOSPAM} and be sure to check back here for some shareware projects, which I'll post soon.)
BSCS (Computer Science) from Northeastern University in Boston - Minoring in Music. I was there from fall, 1987 to spring, 1992. Yes, I did five years of school - alternating full-time classes with full-time co-op stints in and around Boston. After college, I worked at...
...Teradyne, Inc. in Boston, mostly as a Software Engineer, from 1992 til early 2000. Teradyne makes test equipment - big machines that test chips, and I wrote drivers for instruments that go in these testers. My focus was on baseband/audio frequency analog source instruments... for which I did some language design, waveform generation software, drivers, and a digital filter design. All in all it was pretty fun, and I got to work with some really fun and bright people. Though it was pretty cool seeing the waveforms I'd made on a scope, I never got to listen to them. So I eventually left for...
...Dragon Systems to do speech synthesis research. Working here was strange. I was a bit out of my league here, lots of PhD's and linguists abound. Still, I had fun developing a software environment to allow researchers to link in modular TTS (text to speech) synthesizer components at run time to do comparisons on intermediate and ending results. It was fun and exciting until we got bought by...
...Lernout and Hauspie Speech Products. What can I say? Go read the old papers. It was basically the Enron scandal of Belgium, and in the course of two years, we managed to go from 6000 employees to bust. I hung on for the ride as best I could, taking odd jobs which were unfortunately ill-suited to my talents, and eventually ended up getting laid off by Dictaphone, which had been bought up by and then splintered off from L&H. The two years were not without excitement, though. Seeing your CEO in handcuffs on the front page of the Globe's Business section.... hearing about the death threats painted on the mens' room walls, having police patrol the office, hearing about the head of the Korean division getting dragged out of a meeting and beaten by thugs, missing execs, missing cash, SEC fraud, seeing the stock get delisted, and on and on and on. Just when we thought things couldn't possibly get any weirder, they would. In two years, I managed to hold 4 positions, in 3 or 4 departments, for at least 5 bosses, and witnessed several CEO changes. But in the end, when I got laid off...
...I was 6 months pregnant with my daughter, Zoe. So for three and a half months I thought of myself as a laid-off, out-of-work engineer. Now I see myself as a stay-at-home Mom. As Zoe's daily routine (ie naps) gets more predictable, I find myself with a bit of spare time to kill. I find myself craving more knowledge of DSP, of digital audio, of new languages and development tools. So I've set myself up a home studio/office, with my Korg DS-9, my cheesy Yamaha PSR-530, my mixer, some cool speakers, and my PC all wired and MIDI'ed together. I've got a list of ideas a mile long, and just a tiny bit of free time to pursue them, but who knows. Maybe something inspired will come of all this.
Stay tuned for updates...
Personal
Did I mention I have a new daughter, Zoe? She is my world right now, and she is amazing. Does the funniest things. How can anyone so small and cute make such loud wails? And she laughs... and sleeps in my arms, and tries to bite my nose, and loves eating mashed bananas (and that's about it...) and crawls and stands already, and squeaks back at her squeaky toys, and so much more.
I also have her wonderful Daddy, my wonderful husband, Brad, who's been with me since our days at Northeastern. We've been through friendship, dating, living together, moving out again, getting engaged, getting a boat(!), getting married, moving back in together, buying our first home, and now raising Zoe. Before having Zoe, I was always afraid of having to share him with a child. Now I know how amazing it is to watch this nurturing side of him come through. It goes to show, after 14 years of knowing someone, you can still learn something new about them. Brad is an amazing father.
I also have lots of family, in Massachussets, in Tennessee, in Las Vegas, and in Connecticut, where I grew up in Vernon. (That's the town with Rein's Deli...)
Hobbies
Did I mention I have a new daughter Zoe? Okay, so I've been reading tons of parenting books, and my hobbies these days include pureeing foods, changing diapers, singing nursery rhymes, taking pictures, and going to Mom's groups and playgroups and such.
I also enjoy music a lot - we have a beautiful baby grand my father-in-law and step-mother-in-law bought us. Right now I'm struggling to learn to play George Winston's Variations on the Canon. I also like to compose stuff on my keyboards, and have a big library of CD's of all different genres. Seriously, from Tijuana Brass to Enya to Queen to Yello... lots of music. One of my favorites is a CD by a friend's band - Check out Blue Moon Harem here, or live around Boston!! They are great! I used to take piano lessons in Boston, and I used to play casually with a group of friends (we called ourselves "Dave's Not Here") but it hasn't happened in awhile...
We also enjoy boating - we've taken some really cool trips on Hellfish. We've gone literally around Cape Cod once, stopping in Plymouth, Martha's Vineyard, Chatham, and Provincetown. On our second attempt at this, we hit foul weather, so we made it to Plymouth, Martha's Vineyard, and after sneaking back up the canal, Dennisport. We've hiked Great Brewster Spit at low tide, we've been to the top of Boston Light twice, and we've been to many of the Boston Harbor Islands for cookouts and stargazing and toasting marshmallows. We've camped out anchored off Lovell's and Gallop's Islands a few times as well. I have to admit, I miss the boat. I think when I'm an old woman, I'm going to be one of those eccentric liveaboards...
I also like to bowl, but I haven't been since Zoe threw my balance off by, well, growing in me. Since we moved to New Hampshire, it is hard to find a good tenpin alley.
I also have a crafts group, and a book group. I love to read, knit, do cross-stitch, and cook. I've also been a little into decorating lately, but I think it's just all these white walls driving me nuts already.
Well, that's all I can think of for now. Be sure to click on links above to check out some pics of my world.
Eventually I'll add a list of cool links of sites I frequent a lot. And now for the obvious disclaimer: