All entriesA Long Bit about Travis
Travis B. Hartwell married Torie Lynn Henson, his sweetheart and love of his life, on May 27, 2006, in the San Antonio, Texas LDS Temple. Although they had previously met, their relationship and courtship did not start until she connected with him on Myspace. They first talked on AOL Instant Messenger shortly thereafter. During that conversation, Travis was too slow to get the hints she was giving and so she asked him out for their first date. The rest, as they say, is history.
Travis and his beautiful wife live in Austin, Texas. He has "risen above his hick roots"; he grew up in the small town of Monteview, Idaho. He swears he has lost his small-town Idaho accent, but it probably occasionally creeps out. Travis had a happy childhood and was the middle of three children. After growing up, he served a 2-year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Next to marrying his sweetheart, that was one of the most significant events of his life.
Travis is now a software engineer for 21st Century Technologies. He has previously worked as a developer in the video game industry and also at several positions writing software utilized in scientific research at universities. Travis is experienced professionally in developing in C, C++, Python, and POSIX shell script and most recently, Java. He also has developed in Common Lisp, Scheme, Emacs Lisp, and Matlab.
Travis's primary professional interests lie in doing development on and for the Linux platform or for cross-platform applications. He has used Linux as his personal, development, and server operating system since 1999 -- most notably Debian and recently Ubuntu. Travis has been actively involved in the Free and Open Source Software community, including attending and presenting at PyCon DC in both 2003 and 2004.
He is a strong supporter of the Free Software movement and an annual contributor to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. A bit of a idealist, he wishes that all development could be done in the zen that is Lisp, but the pragmatist and realist win out. First and foremost, however, Travis is a craftsman and toolsmith. The tools he wields most often are Linux, the GNOME desktop environment, the Firefox web browser, GNU Emacs, the Bash shell, and the Python programming language. Always seeking to be more productive, his long term goal is to help develop "the perfect computing environment", which will most likely will involve in some form all of those more closely integrated.
Travis received a Bachelor of Science of Computer Science with a Mathematics minor from Utah State University. Favorite courses during his study were Artifical Intelligence, Compiler Construction, Linear Algebra and Differential Equations, and History of the French Revolution. He was active in the Free Software and Linux Club, giving many presentations and serving as the treasurer and system administrator.
When away from the computer, Travis enjoys reading, listening to music, watching engaging TV, playing games, and just enjoying the company of good people. A lover of music, he especially enjoys anything from Beethoven, and Creed and Scott Stapp are his favorite contemporary musicians. The works of Orson Scott Card, the Harry Potter books, and many self-help and technical books line his shelves.
