Okay, so I'm a lazy bastard who probably never would actually have gotten around to really writing a bio. Fortunately I have a wonderful wife who happens to be a writer, who thought it would be amusing to write my life story for posting on my website. Here it is:

The Story of Eric- as told by Jenny, his wife.

Eric was born 11/17/77 in Waverly, Iowa. This may later turn out to be Waverly's one claim to fame. We'll have to see. Eric was the first son of Randi (girl) and Phil Means. He was born a platinum blond, but later decided to grow brown hair so he would be taken seriously as an engineer. As this same mysterious hair transition happened to me, I know that I will have to endure stupid jokes about the milkman until our kids are in ninth grade or so. Anyway, Eric was a good kid, so sayeth Randi. I wasn't there. While in Iowa, Eric enjoyed playing early video games on the Intellivision, and doctor with the girl down the street. Eric would cling to these memories in the dark years that were high school.

When Eric was nine his family moved to Louisville, Kentucky. For some unknown reason, they chose to settle in the middle of nowhere, also known as Crestwood. My sister points out that they have snakes in Crestwood, and says she will not return until urban sprawl finally hits their house. I say she has a long time to wait. My family moved there at the same time, and our parents met at Welcome Wagon and played Bridge together. Eric and his brothers abandoned us (shrieking, "Eww, girls") and we played operation for five hours. Conveniently, he doesn't remember this incident.

Eric attended high school at Oldham County. Unfortunately he suffered from a delayed growth pattern (another serious possibility for our kids) and was 5'2" the whole four years. Many a time he was patted on the head and told he was such a "good friend" or "little brother" by some girl whose pants he wanted to get into. I tell him this was character building, honestly. While sulking in his bedroom he discovered the joy of wasting hours of your life on the computer, and although considered a renaissance man at his high school, decided to forgo the world of literature and be an engineer.

He started school at University of Louisville, grew eight inches, and wasted the entire first year rebelling against having been a 5'2" renaissance man who's everyone's little brother. That out of the way, he began taking classes in somewhat earnest, and switched from Mechanical Engineering to Computer Engineering. He thanks drafting and thermodynamics for clearing up his initial confusion. He played some cards, he drank some whisky, he met some characters, typical college stuff. He also began working at LG&E, in what was a boring, but reliable job.

Now we get to the important bit: summer after junior year Eric went on a blind date he was strongly coerced into by his mother. Sent off with the warning, "Whatever you do, just don't marry her" by his father, Eric met, dated, fell in love with, and proceeded to marry me. In between that he dealt with typical life stuff, out growing some friends, managing a long distance relationship when your significant other is in a different country, learning to live with someone else, finally graduating, and getting a real, real job.

Now all growed up and married, Eric lives in St. Louis, where he works at Boeing on the F/A-18. We have a nice apartment, some new friends, and best of all, two dogs. Cara and Charlie are constantly reminding us why we will wait many years to have children, but also making us laugh ourselves silly at their discovery of the world. Eric is a good dog dad, and will probably be a good kid dad someday too. That'll have to wait until I get my Ph.D. though.

Well, actually, no, not quite The End. :) In mid-2003 Eric and Jenny bought a nice house in South Austin; Jenny moved there in August to start her Ph.D. at the University of Texas, and Eric followed in October after finding a new job automating the houses of very rich people. Somewhere in late October 2003 they acquired a Maine Coon cat named Riley who, in spite of the occasional psychotic ninja kitty episodes, seems to be settling in just fine.