Where to start, eh? Well I was born from an egg on a mountain top, I was the punkiest Monkey that ever popped... Hang on a minute, no I wasn't... So, the Andrew John Neumann story goes a little something like this... (well at least in the abbreviated webpage format)... I was born in a mid-sized town in country Victoria, Australia - and spent life up until the age of 17 or so there (e.g. all of high school). For the most part, life was pretty good - living in blissful ignorance and working my ass off either at high school or working down the local supermarket... Reading, learning to play guitar, graphic design, heavy metal and Dungeons & Dragons got me through the teenage years... After high school, I packed up my stuff and headed on down to Monash University in Clayton, Melbourne to do a Bachelor of Computing. I had the time of my life at university... it was awesome. It was such a great time - living in the "big smoke", learning so much about my passion (programming), myself and making the most amazing friends. The first two years of University was spent living on campus - at the Halls Of Residence. The last year and a half of Uni I spent in sharehousing. This was the start of my great sharehousing experiences. I kicked it all off at "Riversdale Road" - a pretty dodgy place in Box Hill South that I shared with 3 other guys. After that it was Chadstone - 3 guys and my girlfriend at the time. This time it was an awesome place (4 guitar players - how could you go wrong?), but all did not work out, and after 6 months Uni was finished and I was looking for a place to live. I looked for some work, after moving over to Richmond with an ex-girlfriend and a friend of a friend. I ended up doing a bit of contract work, teaching myself some stuff that wasn't covered in my Uni course. Back to Clayton with 3 mates again, and after a fair stint of contract programming, I decided to try and get a permanent role. In 1998 I scored myself a job with a fairly young company called InfoWEB. I was interested in the company, as they were one of the only places doing some serious (e.g. not just HTML) web development. So, it was time to move again - this time into East Melbourne to live with a friend and another guy (soon to become a good friend). After the lease ran out, the three of us picked up and moved over to Collingwood for a year. Meanwhile, InfoWEB had grown from 5 people to 15, and things were going really well. I'd scored myself a gorgeous girlfriend (Stephanie), and I decided that when the year was up at Collingwood, my sharehousing times would be over... I'd had a ball, but needed some time to live alone and do some more development (self not web). So I got myself a 2 bedroom flat in East Melbourne. InfoWEB changed it's name to Wijojo (and had around 30 people now!). I'd moved up the ranks and was doing quite well for myself at work. Steph and I were doing well relationship wise. All was well. I don't know why, but I guess that things were going so well I decided buy a house. I'd had plenty of time in rental places, I'd learnt a hell of a lot about people and myself, and wanted to "settle down", maybe "somewhere close to work". So I ended up buying a place in Blackburn - mere minutes from work. Steph moved in. andrewneumann.com was born. I proposed to Steph. We got a cat (Huckle). All went smashingly (in all sincerity). I spent some time in a band - which was a really cool learning experience. Steph and I got married, went on an awesome honeymoon, won a trip to the states - all of which you can read about on the site... We had a few personality issues within the band, and the band broke up - which was really unfortunate - we wrote some really great songs (just don't ask me the name of the band...) I changed jobs in July 2003, which was a big thing for me. New work was also mere minutes from home, at least for a while. I then became a city worker again, but public transport is pretty good, so, can't complain. Steph and I ummed and ahhed a bit and decided to go on another big overseas trip, this time to Europe. Again, check this very site for stories and pictures. I had some of the best times of my life on that trip. I then got fed up with my employer in about August 2004 and started to look for work elsewhere. I aimed my sights high, at a company I'd been watching for a while, who seemed to fit the criteria (SDM) for what I wanted. I got the job and have been there since (and anticipate will be there for a while yet). Life is good. For the day to day stuff, check out my blog Thanks for reading... Andy