|  | | About Gary & Jake
About Us
by Gary
About 12 to 18 months ago, Gary read about sidewalk astronomy -- people who set their telescopes up on the sidewalk and share the views with passers-by. Gary thought this sounded like a neat idea, so he started doing it himself. People loved it and Gary had a blast.
Eventually, Jake and Gary teamed up to share the skies. Having two of us out there helps keep us to a more regular schedule (we try to be out every week), and seems to make us more approachable for folks. We're both having a great time, and plan to keep hitting the streets for quite awhile. Come join us!
 | | Jake seems to have lost a star... |
About Jake
by Gary
Jake's a big puppy dog. He gets so excited over the stars, he can go a little overboard sometimes. He loves Venus dearly, and will talk you deaf if you ask him about it. Of the two of us, Jake is the one to get more excited about actually observing objects. He likes to really learn a lot about some of his favorite objects, and is always on the lookout for more information. Jake loves to learn about this stuff, which is great. We're students at least as often as we're teachers!
Jake's bio in Jake's words:
As for myself, I was born in San Jose, I grew up in Denair, a small town in the Central Valley, I studied at Pepperdine University where I got my BA in Telecommunications and then at the University of Southern California where I got my MFA in Cinema-Television Production. I worked at Matchframe Video for 1 1/2 years as an audio assistant and voice over recordist for a bunch of History Channel and Discovery Channel documentaries. And then I was hired by Visual Concepts. Shortly after starting at VC, I found out that an online sci-fi game I was playing was using an actual starmap as the basis for its location, so I used that map to locate the star that I had chosen to develop within the game. Shortly after that, I become interested in looking at the stars more closely, so I asked my boss Brian if anyone at work was into astronomy and he told me that Gary was. The rest is history. :)
 | | ...and Gary seems to have found it. |
About Gary
Gary's Web Site
by Jake
Gary lives in Mill Valley with his wife and children. Not only is he a rare native Californian, he is an ever rarer native to the Bay Area, having grown up in Sonoma County. Though Gary started practicing astronomy as a kid, his interest really bloomed after the landing of Pathfinder on the Martian surface. He and his daughter built a 4.5" aperture Dobsonian telescope from a kit, the same telescope he uses today to bring astronomy to the people of Mill Valley. Having worked as a programmer for computer games for many years, recently he changed directions taking a job in internet tool design with a company in San Francisco.
Gary's bio in Gary's words:
I was born in Walnut Creek and grew up in Rohnert Park, California. Went to high school at Cardinal Newman, and attended UC Berkeley in pursuit of a degree in computer science. I got a little tierd of all the red tape they made me go through and decided to leave. I packed everything up, strapped on a backpack, and traveled Australia for a few months.
When I got back, I lucked into a job in the video game industry at Presage Software, doing Macintosh versions of PC games. From there I moved to LifeLike Productions, doing PlayStation work, Visual Concepts, a subsidiary of Sega, working on Dreamcast titles, and now work at Sonicity, Inc., helping program a multicast virtual overlay network system. Whatever that means... :)
On July 4th, 1997, I watched as Mars Pathfinder touched down on Mars, the first probe to do so in over 20 years. It was unbelievable to watch happen. I was hooked on astronomy that day.
 | | I am a machine vastly superior to humans |
About The Server
Gary & Jake runs on a home-assembled 350MHz K6-2, with 128Mb RAM and 3.2 gigs of hard drive. Special thanks to Jake for digging up all the parts for this machine, and Gary for making certain pieces fit via liberal application of a Dremel power tool, two pliers, a ballpeen hammer, and a piece of tile.
"Ophiuchus", as it's known, runs OpenBSD 2.9 and uses Apache, PHP, and MySQL to serve up content. Other software (used on Gary's other computer) includes Bluefish for writing HTML, The Gimp for graphics, and XEphem for all the star maps. Thanks to dyndns.org and ZoneEdit for the free dynamic DNS and DNS hosting service, respectively.
Gary is sad to see the old server go, but he has plans for it. Oh yes, he has plans... | | Wanna ask us something? Yeah, you know you want to! Just email us! |
| | Created with the help of XEphem | | COPYRIGHT: Unless otherwise specified, all formatting, imagery, link collections, and HTML coding contained within this website ©copyright 2000 - 2001. Re-use of graphics, text, or HTML formatting for commercial or private use is strictly prohibited without prior written permission. Gary Arnold and Jake Baker ® All Rights Reserved |
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