A recent web search for the name "ron barry" (what Ian Ashdown called an "ego search") turned up a large collection of people who weren't me, so I figured I might as well have a page out in the big wide world that had enough info on me that someone looking for me might actually have a chance of finding the one-and-only me. =]

High school... sucked. If it didn't, it wouldn't be the proper experience, would it? Port Townsend High School was a sham - money was poured into a badly losing Sports program while music programs that were clobbering the majority of schools in the Northwest were choked for funds. No money for a math program meant that there was nobody to teach calculus my senior year. If it weren't for band, I'd have been done at 10am every day and on my way home.

Our Jazz Band rocked. I was never much for the social life in high school, but some of the people in that band managed to start pulling me out of my shell a bit. The trip to Pasco was unbelievable. Anyone reading this remember that? Sarah Quemada and I became fast friends as a result of the jazz band and remained so until a falling out in 2008.

So I killed time working for Mister Ly at the Shanghai Chinese Restaraunt - the tips weren't the best, but the food was incredible. I worked just about every night only because at the end of shift, we were all fed.

College was a much better experience, though I really would not do Utah again if I had to make the same decision knowing what I know now. I chose Utah State University because it had programs in everything I was considering; math, business, physics, engineering, music, computer science, and god knows what else was running through my brain at the time.

My sophomore year, I took up fencing and eventually took over the Utah State University Fencing Club. By the time I left Logan, there were quite a few fencers who were still at it. I fenced with the Salt Lake Fencing Club for a couple years and travelled quite a bit to fence nationally, but never placed better than the top 100 at a national open tournament. Divisionals were a much better story. I came within a point or two of by B a couple times, but eventually gave up the sport due to carpal tunnel issues and a knee that was learning how to bend the other way. 80+ hour weeks at Acclaim, Inc. had a contribution to my de-fencing, as well.

I eventually graduated in Computer Science and went on to do Master's work, though I never wrote the thesis. The research was done and the results were in, I just found out right before I started writing that someone had already done it. I started again on a networking project, but really wanted a graphics degree, so I let that one slide, as well.

I burned a couple years trying to get myself to start over and didn't make it. After two complete tear-downs, I wasn't up for it.

During my undergrad years, I dated Christine Oliver... off and on. =] The grad years were Lisa Marie Swenson. Married, divorced, and now on friendly terms. We bumped into each other totally at random at the Games Developers' Conference a few years ago and had a fun little reunion and catch-up. Since school, I did a couple years at Evans and Sutherland. Could have been worse, could have been better. I finally got comfortable there in my last six months or so doing Linux Device Driver work, but was very concerned about EnS' status and worried that lay-offs might be on the horizon. The fact that I worked in the same section as the ex-wife didn't make me any less uneasy, so I switched over to Acclaim Studios.

Acclaim was some great experience. I was moved up into project management after about 6 months, which meant spending my time running all over the building for every detail you can imagine... and not having much time to work on the things I'd assigned myself - it turned into some LONG hours.

Acclaim eventually laid me off at the end of June, 2002. The fact that they actually did do a lay-off was a bit of a surprise. I'd had some major clashes with management - to the point of questioning the intelligence of decisions made by the regional director to his face in front of the entire management. Their own fault for putting me in a position of responsibility, I guess...

The following months were a shocker. In one week I flew to California three times for interviews. The last one was with an organization in San Francisco called Shaba Games. They made an offer before I left that day which I accpeted. The games industry being what it was, that turned into my Second lay-off in a year.

Namco Hometek was a joke. More to the point, their lead programmer was. I have since run in to a number of people who share my experience with him, so I've been that much happier with the decision to bail out there after four weeks. (A side note - 3 years later I'm STILL running into people who left Namco specifically to avoid him.... and one other mutual coworker who shall remain nameless.)

Midway Games in San Diego was cool - until they laid off 75% of the staff. I was one of three programmers left in the entire campus for a while. I found myself working for John Romero and I have to say that I've never met such an immature 14-year-old. He was 36. I won't go into the details, but if I'd not wanted to get out of San Diego quickly I would have been filing a lawsuit rather than quitting. As a side note, I gather he was eventually fired for exactly the same kind of behavior I left to avoid.

...which brings us to Sun Microsystems. I was doing operating systems security on the Solaris10 product. Not much to say about it, really. This page is meant to be a click-vaccuum anyway, so not much point in worrying about summation. Besides, unfinished life, unfinished bio.

In my first weeks in San Francisco, I started dating Marilyn Cross, and the relationship held up, despite ups and downs, even through my time in San Diego. The distance relationship wasn't easy, but we managed it somehow. A new year dawns (2006,) and Marilyn and I got engaged. The wedding was set for our fourth anniversary, July 18, but things were not working out and we cancelled all the plans, and the two of us separated.

Marilyn and I have a son, Charles Parker Barry ("Parker") whom I have 50% of the time. He's the best. Say no more. At about the same time that Marilyn and I were on our last legs, I started working for a company in San Francisco called Perpetual Entertainment, doing work as a server programmer, specifically as the "Senior Death Engineer." Perpetual had every kind of issue that a software joint can have. I gather that the lawsuits are still flying on that one. No idea where that's going.

This page changes in the same way tectonic plates move - very slowly and only in bursts. It reads very poorly, but it's not really meant for that kind of consumption, anyway. If you're still with me, I'm impressed.

Perpetual tanked pretty hard. It was no surprise given the undisguised abuse that the management was handing out to the engineers. Much of the engineering staff left, or at least, most of the productive engineering staff. But...

I found myself at Stormfront Studios in March of 2007. My work there covered a subsection of the game, The Spiderwick Chronicles. But like so many independant studios, Stormfront closed its doors in March of 2008 and I was out looking again.

Antonia Gale ("Toni") and I have been dating since 2006. I'm now working for PlayFirst, Inc., as the build engineer. They keep me busy.

I'm not betting that anyone out there is likely to hit this page any time soon... Let me know if you're looking for me, eh? The email address, foodini at foodini.org will reach me.