---
title: Who am I? Why am I here?
site_title: true
---

I live in Chicago but have spent most of my life in Western New York. There's
some quality to Rust Belt cities that just calls to me.

I have a passion for electronics and computers that I discovered after I'd
already gone to school for Political Science and Economics. I hope to one day
get a job that uses my degree, but no luck so far. In the meantime, I've made
a decent living through a series of jobs that I was in no way qualified for.
Just In Time learning has become a staple of my career.

My current side projects are:

+ fleshing out my [personal wiki](https://wiki.dominic-ricottone.com) with
  helpful documentation for statistical programming and server administration,
  as well as transcribing my old college notes
+ a terminal app for controlling both MPD and the Spotify Connect API, a la
  `ncmpcpp` or `ncspot`
+ dead-simple but high-security internet chat

I'm also passionate about international history and culture. I studied Japanese
for three years and spent a semester in Nagoya. My wife and I have a terrible
habit of planning international backpacking vacations that have to be canceled
at the last minute due to closed borders.

If you're looking to hire someone with a weird mixture of programming work
experience and econometrics training, take a look at [my CV](/cv).