About me.

Well, that's me, at a renaissance festival. Yvonne and I love to go to them, and someone managed to get that picture of me.

For the terminally curious, I'm 6 feet tall, around 165 pounds. For years I had pretty long hair, but i've decided to cut it quite short again. I've been active on local BBS systems since the early 80's, and on the Internet since 1994. My real name is Philip Brogden, but most all of that time I've gone by the handle Gryphon, and more recently Stormdancer or Stoda.

I was born in 1960 (a true "child of the '60s"), in Tallahassee, Florida. The family moved to Texas in the early 70's, first in Port Aransas, then moving to Austin in the late 80's.

Hobbies and Fun

I do a lot of roleplay online, usually at SpheresMUX. Check the navigation bar above.

I write a lot, which you can also read more of, on the navbar

I play around with 3D art... wonder where you could find that?

Work history

From early April of 1990 through August of 1995 I worked as a programmer and game designer at Origin Systems, where I worked on a bunch of different games - Worlds of Ultima: Savage Empire; Worlds of Ultima: Martian Dreams; Ultima VII; Serpent Isle; Jane's AH-64D Apache Longbow.

However, in 1995 I moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico to work for Her Interactive, a company dedicated to the idea that girls and women should have fun software, too! Kind of neat stuff, getting to work on something completely NEW for a change! No more retreads of FRPGs and flight sims in new wrappers. I did a couple of games with them - McKenzie & Company, and Vampire Diaries. After that shipped I did their web site for a while... then in an amazing bout of corporate strangeness, I wound up doing some programming on their Nancy Drew game.

But... the situation there was just too strange and unstable, so I decided to leave before they Chapter-11'd. I did a stint of contract programming through Maxim/Aerotech, and eventually settled down at Applied Biosystems doing testing on genetics software - both the stuff that drives the instruments themselves, and the stuff that helps make sense out of the staggering amount of data that's produced. It's very challenging and exciting work - not only is the pure science behind it amazing, but the range of problems facing the testing (especially in an ISO9000 shop) is impressive.

Unfortunately, Applied Biosystems decided to close all of their New Mexico offices, and laid off everyone at both sites. I spent some time floating and taking a break, and at the encouragement of several folks, got my Massage Therapy license.

Now I'm working for Khoral, working with some old friends and new ones, doing a really delightful project that's another game for girls. Really looking foreward to being able to tell more about it.