About
I’m Jim Priest. Husband, father (of two), developer, and avid motorcyclist.
My blog is a mish mash of programming stuff (mostly related to ColdFusion), motorcycling, parenting and the occasional movie and book review.
Background
I spent many years working in the Engineering Industry working for companies like Jacobs Engineering as a CAD (Computer Aided Design/Drafting) Operator while tinkering with computers as a hobby in the evenings.
Around 1995, while working for Clark, Richardson and Biskup, I was given the opportunity to become a Network Administrator (I was the only person who knew anything about PCs) and jumped at the chance. I learned lots of things about networking, CAT5 cabling, Novell (!), keeping users happy and the importance of daily backups.
While I was at Clark, Richardson and Biskup I became intrigued in this “World Wide Web” and began teaching myself HTML. Soon I had a ‘blog’ on the net, and began to create what most would later call an ‘intranet’ for the company using a new programming language: Cold Fusion. As I became more engrossed in programming I had to make a choice – continue with my career as a network administrator or make the leap and become a full time ‘programmer’?
I launched thecrumb.com in 1999 to celebrate the birth of my first daughter.
In 2000 I joined a new startup called ClickCulture – an up-and-coming web development and design firm. As the second employee at ClickCulture I wore many hats: CTO, network administrator, ColdFusion developer and occasionally, designer.
In 2006 I made the jump to Lockheed Martin where I worked as a Senior Software Development Analyst – contracted out to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).
In 2008 the NIEHS contract with Lockheed Martin was picked up by SRA International. I was offered a new title – Configuration Manager. I was heavily involved in the selection, setup and maintenance of Jira (ticket system) and Confluence (Wiki) and also maintained our Subversion repositories. I also continued to develop and maintain ColdFusion applications for NIEHS.
In August 2010 I left SRA and am seeking new opportunities!
My resume is online.
Community
- Co-manager of TACFUG (Triangle Area ColdFusion User Group)
- Organize the Triangle Area CFLunch (cflunch.org)
- CFinNC – A free ColdFusion,Flex and AIR conference in North Carolina
- NCDevCon - A free ColdFusion / Web Developer conference in North Carolina
- Maintain CFEclipse ( a ColdFusion plugin for the Eclipse IDE) website and wiki
- Maintain my Ant wiki – an Ant resource targeted at ColdFusion programmers
Writing / Presentations
I have written articles for the IBM Developer network, ColdFusion Fusion Authority and given presentations at CFMeetup and CFUnited.
Hobbies
I’m an avid motorcyclist. I try to commute to work daily on my BMW R1100GS! I also enjoy building and flying electric remote controlled aircraft. I’ve also recently begun camping in a hammock! And of course I still enjoy tinkering with computers. In the last few years I’ve become interested in Linux and currently run Ubuntu on my home computer (no more Windows)!
Quotes
“The computer can’t tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact mathematical design, but what’s missing is the eyebrows.” ~Frank Zappa
Certifications
About This Blog
This blog is currently running on WordPress. My wiki is running Dokuwiki.