Well, hello there!

I’m Kevin — your host here in the Poptimistic Tiki-tastic Retro-Future Present.  Let me tell you a bit about myself.

I’m a tinkerer, inventor, hacker (in the ORIGINAL use of the word — not someone that breaks into computers), and a geek.  I’m happily married and a proud parent of a wonderful teen.

Currently I have a bunch of irons in the fire (I always do).  My biggest projects tend to focus on home automation technologies.  My heating and A/C as well as some lights and our garden fountain can all be controlled by my homebrew software and Insteon controllers.

Why home automation?  It’s way past time for our homes to begin responding to our needs intelligently rather than sitting there being a big box.  I want my HVAC system to respond to “I’m hot” and “I’m cold” (it does, by the way) and to also know how to be energy efficient by monitoring outside conditions and adapting intelligently to the weather.  Fortunately, I have experience doing indoor air pollution research, so I have a solid understanding of how our heating and cooling is impacted by outside conditions.

Next step?  I want to build an entire smart house from the ground up using my own electronics.  Oh, I’m also planning to build a 6 foot floor lamp that looks like the Space Needle.