Basic Information

About this Page

An overview of ME!

Let's see...where to begin - that's always a tough decision. First, I think it would be helpful to clear something up: my name. The spelling is German, and, although I look German (tall, blond hair, blue eyes, etc.), my ancestors immigrated to the US quite a while back. My parents liked the name but wanted to switch it up a little, so I ended up with the H. It sounds cool when authentic German speakers pronounce it as they would in their native language. The English pronunciation is no different than that of the names Eric or Erik or Erick. Many of my friends and a few coworkers call me either "e-rich" or "air-rich" because of the spelling. My last name sounds just like 'music' (NOT muhsick, as telemarketers generally think) - the k is not pronounced, nor does it change the pronunciation of the name even a little bit.

I was born in a Chicago suburb hospital on December 31, 1984 and spent my childhood in West Chicago, a suburb about 30 miles west of the big city. In May 2007, I graduated from MSOE (Milwaukee School of Engineering) with a B.S in Software Engineering. After graduating, I stuck around in the Milwaukee area and accepted a position with FIS (formerly Metavante) as a software developer with the Electronic Payment and Presentment (Online Bill Payment) team. While at MSOE, I also picked up a German Studies Minor and consequently have somewhat of an interest in the language and the country. I've traveled to Germany twice and would love to visit again.

As for interests ... First and foremost, Jesus - He's the greatest and I owe it all to Him. I honestly could not tell you what my life would be like without Him - I've grown up all my life learning about Him and getting to know Him, so I really don't know what it would be like without Him, just that it wouldn't be cool. Second: my wife. I got married this past September and am enjoying married life, good home cooked meals, etc. That explains the lack of updates to my blog in recent days. I'm also really into computers, especially the programming aspect (C#, Java, PHP, SQL, HTML, JS, CSS, CGI/perl, C++, etc.). The majority of my experience has been in the realm of front-end development; my first personal web site went live on March 3, 1997. I'd love to spend more time making sites look all snazzy, but I don't have the artistic flair required to do that sort of work full time. So, I'm working as a web application software engineer, which satisfies my need for front-end work. Back in the day (high school), I wrote a guestbook, a news manager, a counter, a content management system, and an online gradebook and had a little web design company I called MusickNetworks. Now that I'm working full time, I'm trying my best to keep my part time web development work to a minimum.

I also come from a "high-energy" family - sports are in my genes, even though I'm not that great at most of them. (If i really wanted to, I could be pretty good at any sport - I just don't take the time to do that - I have other things I enjoy more). My senior year of high school, I ran cross country for the first time, which was great because I enjoy running and it was great exercise. At the same time, though, it was very time consuming, which I didn't like. Overall, though, it was good - I improved my times a lot and gained endurance. I also love biking for fun (not mountain biking - you can't do that around Chicago) - like road biking on the prairie path. I also love ultimate frisbee, and volleyball. I think all those hours I watched my mom play volleyball when i was little contributed to my skill at the sport.

My favorite color is blue - look at the web sites I've designed - most of them are based on a blue color scheme - I have trouble making other colors look really good.

Well that's about all I can think of right now - if you want some more info, contact me, read my testimony, read my resume, or Facebook me.

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