What is this page? Who is this person? How did you end up clicking here? What are those stupid spinning gears? And what's up with that cheesey 90's "Welcome" image? All very good questions. Not sure I have answers to them all. But please feel free to click around if you're really bored.

Short story: Welcome to my site. Many different bits of info here. Hope you find something useful, enjoyable, provocative. Feel free to comment, say hello, or do nothing at all.

Longer story: I guess it's not really new information at this point, but I'm still here in Charlottesville, VA. Why? More work to do. :-) How did I end up in C'ville? About seven years ago, I accepted the position of Technical Director for the Virginia Center for Computer Music.

I spend a good deal of my time working on a real-time audio synthesis and effects processing language called RTcmix. It runs under various flavors of Unix and is a collaborative effort between myself and several other very talented people around the country. We even have a domain name for it now, www.rtcmix.org. Check it out, it's free. Here's a link to the old RTcmix for Linux pages for you ub3r g33ks: RTcmix for Linux.

Since it seems to be my most popular page, I should probably put a link here. Ever wonder what AI sounds like? This was one of my first projects in computer music. It's called The 8 Puzzle Composer: Hearing the Solution.

My campaign for President didn't pan out so well. ;-) But I did manage to get slurped up into a few search engines and generate some hits (the real point). Do some Google searches for Election 2008, 2012, and so on. I predict the next campaign will be won and lost via the internet, and that Television will play a secondary role.

I won't say any more about the election (yet), except that we got what we deserved. I feel the following two links to be most relevant in the aftermath:

Before there were blogs, there were website guestbooks and "rants and raves." I haven't made the jump to a weblog and don't think I ever will (at least not for personal blathering). My time is likely better spent doing something else. So...

My efforts have somewhat come to a halt regarding a thoughts and commentary (aka ramblings) section. So it goes. I'll keep the link here regardless. The opinions expressed there are 100% my own, perhaps shared by others.

You can also check out what other people have had to say about these little pages (minus about 2 years worth ... due to circumstances that slipped out of my control). Or, you can just leave a message of your own.

Always feel free to send me mail at topper@virginia.edu

The animated gears (those perpetual cogs ... always turning) at the top of this page were rendered with the Mesa 3-D graphics library. Gotta give credit where credit is due.

If you haven't already, go and buy The Tenacious D album.

Pages last dusted off: March 25, 2005