I am Rick Fleischer.
I was born and grew up in Bend, Oregon.
I am 26 years old.

How my online life began
I was introduced to the Internet when I was 12 and was instantly hooked. Back then Netscape was popular, there was no such thing as blogs, and Geocities was a place to setup shop. I jumped right into web design and even hosted a web server on my computer.

Self taught from the resources available online back then, I remember printing out 80 pages worth of HTML guides and reading through them. Animated .gifs, perl counters, and tacky patterned backgrounds. It was such a fun place and time to begin.

Eventually I became pretty good at web design and found myself running several fan-based up-and-coming game sites. Prey.net (Prey), Total Destruction (Duke Nukem Forever), and Experience3D (Experience). That was ten years ago and so far only Prey has been released.

During summer break before my senior year in high school I moved to Los Angeles to see how I'd like working onsite with the company my sites were hosted under. This is when investors threw money at .com's and it was a big deal to get into E3. I switched gears from building gaming sites to family entertainment (flash animations) and advertising. After the bubble burst it took us several years of waiting patiently for our shares to be worth anything.

After sticking it out for 6 years the company was purchased by Fox Interactive Media and I decided to tap out. In early 2006 a few of us moved on to startup a new business and take the challenge all over again.

What I really do
I'm the director of technology for a company that does everything to develop a product, create brand awareness, and get it into consumers hands. All of this is done in-house with a small, but amazing group of individuals.

For the past 3 years of my career I switched from designing to managing which is why I decided to create this blog in the first place. This allows me to proactively keep up with web technology and sharpen my design skills.

My Interests

• Programming - Javascript, Coldfusion, and SQL. Java, Ruby on Rails, and testing out a few frameworks coming soon.
• Design - Photoshop. Painter & Illustrator I will pick up on '07.
• Movies - My DVD collection must be in the 700+ range. One of my first DB projects was creating one for my DVDs, but I haven't maintained it in over a year. I'll have to dig it out one weekend, update the list, and link it here.
• Music - If I had to pick between music and movies I would have to go with music. I'll take it a step further and say a bottle of whiskey, a six-pack of coke, ice, the lights down low, and music playing while I lay on my bed is complete bliss for me. This is also why my biggest, personal, programming project is my Media Controller.
• Games - I'm a huge fan of FPS games and to this day I still find myself going back and playing Counter-Strike: Source (I've played the original CS since the first public release). I just wish I had more time for games.
• Books, Drawing, Photography - Much like gaming, I could certainly use another 4 hours a day to spend time in this world.
• And of course of my girlfriend and newfound puppy, Ender! They're the reason I don't have time to do the fun stuff listed above! :P

What else
I'm always trying to organize my life, read up on new technology and design patterns, and in general live more efficiently. This blog is about sharing what I learn and projects I produce because I'd hate to keep it to myself.