Hello. I’m Ben, and I’m a self-taught web designer and developer. Between sips of coffee, I write HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, and whatever else I need to get the job done. I hate the sound of styrofoam and I want one of these. I love to sing, in and out of the shower. One of my favorite humans is Andrea McNett, who I live with in Minneapolis, MN. We yearn for a kitty.

I currently attend the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, where I am studying computer science. I also took some courses at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville in computer science, where I learned C++ and Java, as well as the fundamentals of object-oriented programming, knowledge that has served me well in PHP and other languages.

I work at Computer Services and Repair at the University of Minnesota, where I troubleshoot and repair a wide spectrum of customer hardware and software. As a technician I am responsible not only for repairs, but also for customer service, and I regularly must explain difficult issues to customers, such as costly repairs or loss of data.†

Prior to my time at Computer Services and Repair, I worked at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville as an Assistant Administrative Support Specialist. My supervisor and I were responsible for supporting a large number of users in the administrative departments of the university. My skills as a problem-solver came into play regularly to troubleshoot unfamiliar software or hardware on a user-by-user basis. As valuable as my work experience was the mentoring I received from my supervisor, who taught me a great deal about prioritizing work and projects and working as a team.

If you’re still reading, you may be curious as to how I ended up in web development. I am fully self-taught, having started with an “HTML for Dummies” book back in the sixth grade. The book was very intriguing to me. I learned a lot about tables and how they should be used for layout (!), as well as the wiles of writing markup for Netscape.

My initial efforts ended primarily in frustration. My designs were nothing like the style I marveled at in the CSS Zen Garden, and I ended up shifting from HTML and CSS to PHP and MySQL and, with the help of a friend, dove into developing a massively multiplayer text-based, turn-based adventure game. After several thousand lines of code and the realization that this project was harder than we thought, we gave up on our dreams of fame and fortune.‡ In the process, however, I had learned a large amount about PHP and MySQL, knowledge that formed the foundation of my web development skills.

Now, I spend my time trying to tie together beautiful designs and beautiful code. I ogle at Dribbble, scheme at CSS-Tricks, lament at CSS Lint, and wizen up at CSS Wizardry. And, naturally, I spend way too much time at Stack Overflow. These days I get confused when someone says “up and at ‘em” because they seem to be specifying a font size. Most of all, I love beautiful websites, I love seeing them every day, and I love creating them myself.