Arei is the internet name/alias of Glen R. Goodwin.

I am employed as a User Experience Technologist/Senior Software Engineer for a small government contractor Vision Systems and Technologies, inc.  Usually when I tell people my title they immediately ask, “So what is a User Experience Technologist?”  Basically I am an expert in the technologies, processes and fundamentals of how a user interacts with a computer.  This means on any given day I can be designing mock ups of a user interface, writing that interface in Java Swing or HTML/CSS/JavaScript (or some other language), discussing user goals, architecting systems, or espousing on the philosophy of user motivations and behavior.  By and large I love the work I do which allows me a great deal of creativity, freedom, and introspection.

I live with my long term fiancee Jennifer in our new house in Laurel Maryland, USA.  Jennifer is the delight of my life and my near constant companion.  She works over at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab as a Senior Scientist and does all kinds of brainy math and science that I could never hope to understand.  We have two lovely cats named Pascal and Fable, who are technically my cats and I named them for two aspects of my identity: logic and myth.  Originally I lived in Massachusetts (in and around the Boston area) where I went to most of my college schooling at Northeastern University.  While I work in computers and have been programming computers since I was 12 years old, my college work is predominately related to English Literature.  I do not currently hold any formal college degrees, but I continue to attend with the hope of some day in the far far future of actually finishing.

I spend a lot of my free time with Jennifer but I also love to play ultimate frisbee.  I play on two teams in the spring and fall, captain a recreational team for the Washington Area Frisbee Club during the summer, and pretty much play at the Columbia Ultimate Pickup Group year round.  I am a huge fan of the game, the spirit of the players, and just throwing a frisbee.  I also enjoy outdoors activities, playing video games, rooting for the Boston Red Sox, reading fiction, cooking and eating, and drinking high quality beers.