As you may have already guessed, my name is Jason Mauer and this is my website. Thanks for visiting.

My Life Story in 250 Words or Less

I was born on October 6th, 1976 in Helena, Montana, where I grew up. It was cold there. In middle school I used my paper route money to buy a Laser 128 out of the Sears catalog and taught myself how to program. I fell in love with music playing trumpet in jazz band.

My first programming gig started pretty much straight out of high school, a contract gig (building a time billing app in C++ for the Mac) that eventually grew into a full-time consulting position. I ended up working a few other programming and tech-related jobs (including the Montana Supreme Court) before I made the move to Miami to work for Carnival Cruise Lines in 1999. I played guitar in a power trio called The Slomos and ate plantains.

By 2000 I was livin’ la vida loca as the lead for a web development team at a semiconductor distributor and sporting a kickass tan. In the spring of 2001 the dot-com bubble began to burst and I was caught in a round of layoffs. Not finding work locally and seeing it a message from Fate, I decided to look elsewhere. Based on the recommendations of a friend, Portland was the first place I looked. I applied for one job (with Microsoft), got it, and packed my bags for PDX. I’ve lived here ever since.

My Job

After fifteen years working for others in the field of software development, I formed my own business in November 2009 called Mighty Code. We provide training, consulting, and custom development services in the Portland metro area.  (We will do work outside of Portland, but it’s going to cost you.)

Prior to my foray into entrepreneurship, I worked for Microsoft for about 8½ years. The first half of my time there was spent as an application development consultant, and the second half as a Developer Evangelist covering the Pacific Northwest. My mission as a DE was to make other developers happy through training, organizing events, and talking with customers about emerging technologies. I served as the human interface to Microsoft for many in the local developer community. I don’t know if I’d be able to pull off what I’m doing now were it not for that experience.

My Family

I was married for about three years, from mid-2004 to mid-2007. Besides aging me horribly, I have one important thing to show for it – my five-year old son, Zachary. He alternates weeks between our place and his mom’s. He is as perfect a kid as you could possibly hope for: kind, well-behaved, and exceedingly smart. (He seems to have his dad’s sense of humor as well, for better or worse. :)

My Interests

Programming is definitely one of my passions… it’s a prerequisite for my job. Among my pet projects is an open source XNA game engine called Imagination and a blog engine/CMS called Loggo. Hopefully I will have something worthy of public release before the sun burns out.

My other big passion in life is music. My main instruments are guitar and trumpet, and sometimes try to get more into singing. For some of my more recent musical output, check out my current band, No Good Jones.

I have gone through different phases of physical fitness in my adulthood ranging from dunking basketballs to couch potato. In the past couple of years I’ve been much more cognizant of my health and have made it more of a focus in my life. Sports I enjoy include basketball, Ultimate, and tennis.

In 2008 I rediscovered cycling after a decade-plus hiatus; you can find me on my bike most days if there isn’t snow on the ground. In August 2009 I rode my bike from Portland down to San Diego over the course of three weeks, which was a lot of fun (planning on many more bike adventures in the future). I also spend a fair amount of time in the gym (mostly lifting) and am hoping to compete in a triathlon in the near future.

Random Trivia About Yours Truly

• I am left-handed and proud of it, but who wouldn’t be when you’re genetically superior to over 90% of the population?
• As a southpaw, I originally learned to play guitar on a right-handed guitar playing it upside down (a la Dick Dale or Albert King). I relearned to play the left way with my first lefty guitar in 1995, but I can still play upside-down if I need to.
• I have one wisdom tooth, which is pretty rare. It is on the left side so I kept it. Because it contributes absolutely nothing towards the chewing of food, it can devote all of its resources towards pure wisdom. This is how I knew the Steelers would win the Super Bowl last year.
• I was the only kid in my high school class who could dunk a basketball, but I wasn’t on the basketball team. It wasn’t that I didn’t play ball; I was just having too much fun playing in pep band. (I did play a lot of street ball in the years following high school though.)
• I’ve been to three of the seven continents, and hope to visit them all eventually. I would also like to visit all the states (on the bike!), but don’t plan on staying long in some of the boxy ones in the middle.