Steven M. Woodcock
aka
"Ferretman"
(Click on my picture if you want to send me e-mail)

My Stats

• Male
• 5'10" - 135 lbs
• Brown hair
• Brown eyes
• 41
• Happily married to the most beautiful Colleen (True Love does happen, I have proof!)

My "Day Job"

I work out at Schriever AFB, here in Colorado Springs. I'd talk about it more but it would doubtless annoy people with too much time on their hands. Suffice it to say I'm saving the world and leave it at that.

I used to be a Senior Software Engineer working for Real3D, a commercial company once owned by Lockheed Martin, but they died and got sold to Intel.

My "Night Job"

When I'm not busy saving the world I'm writing and/or doing game development for other companies. My main focus is Game AI (artificial intelligence), but I'm a flexible kind of guy and I've done lots of stuff. It's fun work, and both activities keep me on the cutting edge of the software field (games will do that). You can check out some of my writing here, and ask me about any games I've done (it's hard to keep a list updated).

My Psychology

According to the Keirsey Temperament Sorter Test I'm an ENTP personality type. The ENTP designation stands for Extrovert/iNtuitive/Thinking/Perceptive, which (once I read the descriptions of same online) certainly does seem to fit me. In case you're curious, my actual ratings in each category were 1/14/3/13.

My Interests

• Wargaming and the study of the arts of war.
• Shooting and firearms of all kinds.
• Anything outdoors in the great state of Colorado.
• Writing stories of various types (mostly science fiection and fantasy), articles about artificial intelligence, etc.
• Engaging in a rousing debate on nearly any subject.
• Playing with my computer.
• Surfing the Net.
• Reading good science fiction and fantasy (some favorites: Donaldson, Resnick, Watt-Evans, Piper, Turtledove, Pratchett).
• Creating unique and interesting software.
• Playing video games.
• Net surfing.
• 70s and 80s pop music (yes, I really like some disco).
• Playing with my ferrets.
• Playing with my wyfe Colleen.
• Dilbert.

• Red Dwarf, one of the best written and just plain funniest shows on TV. Check out the newsgroup if you don't know about this great show, or the above website.
• Babylon-5 (and its sequel Crusade), the single best show on TV.
• Star Trek (always a classic).

• Born in Washington, Missouri.
• Grew up in Sullivan, Missouri on a 30-acre farm in the country. Learned a lot about living in the woods there; it's where my love for all things far and away came from.
• Worked all my teenage years at the family-owned Grande Drive In movie theatre-- the single best place a kid can grow up, IMHO.
• Graduated from the University of Missouri at Rolla in 1983 with a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science.
• Moved to Denver at the start of 1984 to work for Martin Marietta.
• Moved to Colorado Springs in August of 1987 to work at the National Test Bed (later to become the JNIC).
• Worked for Lockheed-Martin for 15 years before we spun our division off as Real3D, Inc. Three years of that were spent doing SDI studies and analysis work, with the following eight years at the National Test Bed doing real-time wargaming on a Cray-2 supercomputer....it was fun.
• From 1995 through 1998 I worked at Real3D pursuing a life-long interest in the creation of computer games. While Real3D has now bowed out of this effort I've stayed heavily involved by doing consulting on Game AI on my own time. It's fascinating work, truly the cutting edge of computer software. Real3D's failure to exploit this market, however, eventually led to my going to work for Some Other Company.