The Man, The Myth, The Legend

Many of you know me, many more know of me, and several of you probably have my picture on a dartboard somewhere in your office. I am the creator and lead developer of the SIDEARM 2 software that you use daily. To continue (or perhaps finish) the recent trend of this blog, I wanted to take a moment to give everyone a glimpse of my background, so as to put a human touch upon the distant and sometimes mythical ethos of Mark W. Frantz.

I was born in a log cabin in Illinois, and spent the early my youth not lying about chopping down cherry trees. After a misspent summer conning folks into white-washing a fence, I left home and wandered across the nation, seeding apple orchards everywhere I went. It was during these travels that I joined up with a traveling circus, eventually becoming a trapeze artist. Sadly, my trapeze team met their fate one night at the hands of an evil villain, and I was taken in by a millionaire recluse who had an interesting nightlife.

After a few years there, I worked briefly at a department store designing amazing window displays with my secret mannequin girlfriend. Eventually I struck out on my own as a freelance photographer for a major newspaper, making a name for myself by getting exclusive pictures of an elusive subject. Finally, after defeating the Green Goblin, I decided it was time to get an appropriate education. I turned down full-rides from Oxford and Police Academy 6 and instead found my way to upstate New York and Syracuse University.

It was there that I was introduced to a young baby-faced professor who was looking to exploit the amazing talents of a young programmer such as myself, for astonishingly little pay. Ten years later and I still work for that professor, who is no longer young nor baby-faced.

I have been happily married for 4 years now, and my wife and I recently celebrated the birth of our first tax deduction, Justine Eleanor. As any of you that are parents are well-aware, life has changed abruptly and significantly with her arrival, with a lot less time for my hobbies (advanced nuclear rocketry, animal husbandry) and a lot more time spent with her (making faces, keeping her away from the rockets). I have a blog which chronicles my adventures in parenting, should you ever wish (for whatever reason) to learn more about my home life – it’s at http://heirapparent.wordpress.com .

Hopefully this glimpse into my world was enlightening, thought-provoking, and will lead to profile write-ups of me on your sites and/or family blogs. Just let me know if you need any photos of me and I’d be happy to supply them…