So you’ve come here to find out about me? Well, OK then…
Starting with the basics, my name is Kieron Thwaites, and I’m a 26 year old (at the time of writing, August 2011) male living in the most awesome place on earth – Cape Town, South Africa. Most of my friends call me “Ron” for short though – it started back in ye olde high school days, and has stuck ever since.
Online, the most common handle that I use is the one of “Ron2K”, which I’ve used since 2000 and which I use the most. More recently, I use the alternate handle of “Kelerei” instead. The origins of the Ron2K handle should be fairly obvious (well, I hope!), while Kelerei was my attempt to create a name in the Thalassian language (the language of the blood elves in World of Warcraft lore); predictably, this is the name of my World of Warcraft character.
Bio
I grew up in Durban, South Africa, and spent the first 18 years of my life there. I then spent one year at the University of Cape Town, studying a degree that I absolutely hated, and then moved back to Durban and to the University of KwaZulu-Natal, studying a different (but equally hateful) degree. It was towards the end of this period where I met up with Jeremy Thurgood, who was doing his masters in electronic engineering at the time – and between the two of us, we realised that tinkering with code was more my thing. We’ve remained extremely good friends ever since.
So, after deciding “well, bugger that” as far as university life went, I enrolled at a private college in 2005 and completed (or rather annihilated) a one year diploma in software development. Said private college then took me on as one of their tutors, while I continued working part time towards the elusive degree in computer science. I finally obtained this towards the end of 2009.
Near the end of 2006, I got my first break as a junior software developer. In 2010, realising that the career path for software developers in Durban had limited opportunities for personal growth, I took the plunge and moved back to the Cape – and haven’t looked back since.
Work
I still write code for a living. At present, I work on back-end systems for one of South Africa’s internet service providers. The work is challenging, but is very rewarding, and it’s something that I really enjoy doing. (Conversely, if your internet breaks, there’s a chance that it was me who broke it!)
I also administer on a technical level the forums of the PCFormat magazine – a task that is definitely categorised under work and not play!
Play
Although I don’t have that much spare time, I definitely know how to make use of the time that I do have!
I don’t have that much interest in spectator sports (sport is something one does, rather than something one watches), with a notable exception being F1 racing. Rather, I partake in activities such as playing table tennis, foosball, ultimate frisbee and just going for some runs around the neighbourhood.
I also have a bit of a musical streak. I have been trained to play both the piano and the pipe organ, and contribute towards my church’s band. I’m also an amateur trance DJ (which includes a stint on UCT Radio back in the days) and have briefly experimented with trance music production in the past as well.
As I write code for a living, it would make sense that I use computers for fun as well, and these include gaming (I was one of the co-founders of Durban’s FRAG LAN), networking (I’m trying to work around a router with outdated firmware and deploy IPv6 to my home network at present), and just plain general tinkering.
I also have a love for the outdoors, and will quite happily go hiking in the mountains, or even just head into the mountains with just some food and a sleeping bag and sleep under the stars by myself. (Yes, I’ve actually done this!) Some of my favourite memories have been made in some very remote, far-off corners of Africa’s southern tip.
When all else fails, I’ve been known to simply jump in the car and drive somewhere just for the sake of driving somewhere.
Personal
In terms of the Myers-Briggs personality test, I’ve come out as INTJ (introverted, intuitive, thinking, judging), which is globally extremely rare (estimated at around 2.1% of the world’s population) but which seems to be more prevalent amongst us software developer types. In a nutshell, this means that I know what I know, and perhaps more importantly, I know what I don’t know.
My one weakness is personal relationships – due in part to my extreme introvertedness and little patience and understanding for things such as small talk and flirtation (which most others see as the fun part of a relationship, but which I simply just don’t get), every attempt that I’ve made at starting one has ended rather disastrously on my part, which has pretty much caused me to lose all interest. In short, I’m still single, and I’d prefer to remain that way for the foreseeable future. On the bright side, at least I’m not distracted from the things that I truly enjoy doing.
Basically, I won’t bother to get to know people that won’t bother to get to know me – but those that do take the trouble will find a very intelligent and interesting person on the other end…