David Souther

I care about who you are today. I don’t care about how old you are, where you’ve been, or what you’ve done, only that today you are a good person, and that you intend to keep being a good person in the future.

Adjectives that describe me, but my spellchecker doesn’t like:
Sapiosexual
Meliorist
Euclidean (Damn, it likes the Greeks)
Extropianist
Wikipede
Poppernian Epistimologist

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What I’m doing with my life

I recently finished a BSc Computer Science and BSc Mathematics at Rocky Mountain College, a small liberal arts school in Billings, Montana. During my Senior year at Rocky, I joined Design Delegates, a software development start-up founded by a couple friends of mine from high school. I am the Chief Software Architect at Design Delegates, responsible for all our technical decisions and outcomes. During a typical week, I will spend a few hours as a sysad, setting up new platforms for our team to work on. I spend about half of my programming time architecting large-scale pieces of our software, and about half of my time implementing pieces of those designs. Working in a team environment means a lot of time in meetings with the team, and I spend a fair amount of time helping my programmers solve problems they come across.

I’m really good at

Figuring things out, having a good time, being outdoors.

I love to think through problems, and take great pleasure in figuring things out. I enjoy designing systems and planning operations. I try to take everything I do with a grain of salt, and hate taking my self (or others) too seriously. Things just flow better when everyone’s happy!

The first things people usually notice about me

I’m very thoughtful, and when deep in conversation, careful about what I say. Clear and concise language is a powerful aid to clear thinking, and an absolute necessity in successful conversation. That said, I do not mince words or hem-haw over their meaning. I have no respect for stated authority- I will only accept and respect a person’s knowledge in a field as they demonstrate their abilities and capabilities therein.

Favorite books, movies, shows, music, and food

For movies, I enjoy smart and dark humor. Quentin Tarantino is an all-time favorite, as is Humphrey Bogart. I love action flicks, and cannot stand potty-humor alcoholic comedies. Drama, when done well, is fantastic, and I’m always ready to cuddle through any chick flick. I don’t like horror and suspense- they are completely not my style, and I won’t sit through them with anyone.

Music, pretty much every genre’s represented in my Pandora stations. I seem to go through genres in about a 6-month period, until I switch to something different and the others stick around and get added to the collection. Right now, it’s NewNormalMusic.com (indie rock). Most of last summer it was 70s and 80s arena rock. Country of the 80s through 2000s before that, and alternative rock 90s through 2000s before that. I listen to internet radio, and very selectively purchase albums. Specifically, there are four artists whose album I’d buy today: A Fine Frenzy, 30 Seconds to Mars, Sara Bareilles, and Brad Paisley.

I read voraciously, mostly textbooks and technical writing (in many fields), as well as literature. Novels are my favorite, followed by Shakespeare’s plays. I enjoy hard sci-fi, and some soft sci-fi and high fantasy. I usually put up with the classics, often for my pleasure, though sometimes only so I can despise them on their (de)merits.

I enjoy eating anything I cook, and I enjoy cooking the animals I hunt. Deer, Antelope, anything from my grandmother’s garden. Those are the staples of my diet, but I’m no slouch with a cookbook, either.

The six things I could never do without

• Thoughtful pursuits.
• Friendly people.
• Good food.
• Fine drink.
• Fun toys.
• Mother Nature.

I spend a lot of time thinking about

Anything and everything.

By trade, I develop software for companies looking to improve their workflow, and their bottom line. This gives me the opportunity to work in nearly every area of today’s business world, from construction firms to insurance trusts, the medical industry to law firms and video games. Outside the office, I have a wonderful time discussing politics on every level, social movements on every level, history, philosophy, theology- anything that uses my mind, I pursue. When I know enough about it, the real fun begins- the best part of being educated is the wider and subtler jokes to understand.

On a typical Friday night I am

Sipping coffee sketching ideas of quantum physics, software development, and law, or camping a few miles into the back country.

Probably my favorite Friday night last summer was on the Froze to Death plateau. We were attempting Granite peak. Got up in the middle of the night to use the restroom. It had been thundering when we went to bed, but when I got out of the tent, it was clear sky all around. The stars overhead were as numerous as the tales of the Cheyenne Braves of lore, the mountain goats were standing to one side. A perfect night in a perfect wilderness.

The most private thing I’m willing to admit

I have a secret. A dark, terrible secret. A secret with scruff, brown hair, long claws, sharp teeth… less a secret, really, and more a bear.