About Me
I’m RJ, aka gatekeepeR (my online gaming tag). Originally from the western-Ohio area, my undergraduate days were spent in Blacksburg, Virginia (go HOKIES!) and have been a resident of the Piedmont Triad, North Carolina since shortly past graduation. The running joke is that over the next 30 years of my working career, I’ll make my way further South.
By day, I work for a small financial services practice in a hybrid role of general manager/case manager. As we’re still growing/expanding and refining how the practice works, I’ll have more of a general manager role. When I’m not at the office, I work part-time for a local catering company fulfilling any number of roles they need me to take on. I love the people that I work with in both jobs. I get to meet interesting clients in our practice and get to do some really unique stuff while catering.
What free time is left is split between gaming, cycling, and web design/development. I also enjoy reading quite a bit, whether it’s some new article on web design or just “casual” reading. I tend to favor some of the YA titles and the associated fanfiction (helps reduce the cost of books, you know).
The name
I often get asked why “gatekeepeR”? A lot of people think it’s a Ghostbusters thing, but it’s not.
The name actually dates back to my senior year at VT. My friends and I would have massive Starcraft, Age of Empires, or Total Annihilation games on the dorm LAN. Two of my friends used the handles “Mechinator” and “Arkangel”. I needed something that sounded sort of cool, maybe even a little “menacing” and keeping with my friend Jeff’s “Arkangel” theme, I choose “gatekeepeR”. Or rather, that’s what it was shortened to after originally being “Hell’s gatekeepeR”.
I have a second online identity that dates back to high school and the days of AOL dialup – swngnblues (swing and blues – two genres I was having fun with playing guitar in the Jazz band).
About the site
This site started in 2007/2008 primarily as a hosting solution for my online gaming exploits. At the time, I was playing competitive CSS with some friends and it served to as the distribution point of our SourceTV feeds. Over time, as I’ve discovered various hosted webapps, those have been installed/setup.
Now-a-days, it serves primarily as my blog and email server and any other hosted apps I might want/need. As my web development/design matures, it will also serve as an online portfolio (I think).
A side note
I will never post anything related to my primary job in the financial services industry. I’m bound by SEC and FINRA regulations, as well as my employing firm’s own rules to not post anything. On top of that, there are also privacy concerns. Our clients pay us to provide that advice and I won’t give anything away. Sorry, just won’t happen.
You want financial advice – this much I can post (they’re old axioms) – buy low, sell high; spend less than you make; save as much as you can (shoot for 10% of your income).
If I ever leave the industry, there may be certain things I can offer up, but don’t count on it.