I was born in the
Chinese year of the Rat, and my name backwards is "a rat". My brother
often capitalizes on this. 
You really *are* bored, aren't you? Wow... I'm surprised. Well, you asked for my biography, so why don't I tell you bits and pieces about my life? I guess the most important thing right now would have to be the fact that I just got married -- on September 7, 1997, on the Big Island of Hawaii, to Peter Norby, and doubt we'll ever finish with the thank you notes. But we're trying...
I'm 25, as of this writing, but tend to modify this page every few years (and thus may be inadvertently (or "vertently") lying), and currently living in beautiful downtown San Mateo, California. It's a good place for a two-career couple, as it's within almost decent commute distance from most of the Bay Area.
So, I was born on June 19, lo these many years ago, in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, to hippie parents who (a) weren't expecting me to appear for another 6 weeks, and (b) had no name picked out for Baby Girl Bloyd. Needing a name to put on the birth certificate, they were sitting around watching t.v. and mulling over their choices when they realized that a character on Gunsmoke was named Tara (pronounced like the stuff on the road, not like "terra firma"), and they simultaneously (or so they've told me) decided that was a nice name... But Tara Girl Bloyd didn't quite work either, so they had to come up with a middle name; this was much easier said than done! Finally they decided that since I was born in the middle of a flood, they would name me Tara Raine. (The "e" on the end adds originality, don't you think? Nevertheless, my younger brother still loves to call me acid raine....) And thus a disaster was averted, and I ended up with cocktail party chat that'll last me for years.
As a hippie child, I lived for several years without T.V. or electricity, without running water or indoor plumbing, and in -- you guessed it! -- Woodstock, New York, in a log cabin that my parents built by hand. (Here's a picture of me at a birthday party when I was eight -- my brother was kind enough to put it online...)
My father worked as a blacksmith, a chimneysweep, and a carpenter; my mother was a stonemason, among other things. (Now, of course, my dad is a regional manager for Micom Communications Corp., a Nortel company, and my mom works for Outside Magazine. They've changed just a bit, wouldn't you say?) When they divorced when I was eight, my brother (four years younger than I am) and I switched off years living with each parent; because of that we've lived in quite a few really cool places, including Ohio (okay, so I exaggerated; by no stretch of the imagination can Union City, Ohio be called cool...), Wisconsin (for mere months...), all over New York, and a few different places in California; including college, I've been to at least twelve different schools (and I didn't go to kindergarten... whee!).
I went to Homestead High School, in Cupertino, California (so did Steve Wozniak, who's a really nice person as well as just being far too brilliant and all that stuff -- and NO, we weren't there at the same time except when he came for various fundraisers. He did serve ice cream to my parents at one such event, though, which was more cocktail party fodder -- I really need to start attending cocktail parties, though, if I'm ever going to do anything with my stories besides inflicting them upon the vast, uncaring web audience...), and from there went to Lewis and Clark College, in Portland, Oregon (a very nice, small, private school -- good for my first foray away from home). I transferred to De Anza College in Cupertino, and then to Berkeley, where I studied for three years (well, was a student... studying might be overstating my actions there!).
I work in high tech sales; I'm currently searching for a new position, but doubt that'll continue for too long (the job market's pretty good around here, and I'm good at what I do). Peter's a "Unix Systems Architect" at Inktomi Corporation, the brains behind Hotbot, the best search engine out there, and not just because I'm biased!
While at the university I worked in the Residence Halls; I worked as a Resident Assistant at the Clark Kerr Campus, one of the University's residence hall complexes, and my last year there I was Hall Coordinator of Davidson Hall in Unit II (another university-run complex). This essentially just means that I got to do a fair amount of work.... fun fun fun. I had an apartment (came with the job), two phone lines (had to pander to my need to log in, didn't I?), a boyfriend (no, these are NOT listed in order of importance!), and other fabulous and exciting things... lucky me! But interesting as that may have been, I can't deny that I was thrilled to finally graduate and move on with my life...
Interesting facts about me:
I was born in the
Chinese year of the Rat, and my name backwards is "a rat". My brother
often capitalizes on this.
I lived for a year in a
Buddhist
monastery (the Zen Mountain
Monastery, where my half-sister was born.)
Along those lines, my
name is the same as the (Tibetan) Buddhist goddess of mercy and
compassion. (That's her to the left -- the Goddess Tara, more commonly
known as Kwan Yin.) Go figure.
I have never eaten a Twinkie.
No twinkie defense for me if I go psychotic and start looking for
someone to kill...
I was not given a car
for my 16th birthday, for graduation, or for any event inbetween. Not
that I'm at all bitter about that, of course... We are, however,
thinking of trading in our '92 Taurus for something slightly newer...
probably a Saturn or a Honda civic. Suggestions, anyone?
My sweetie's
half-Chinese, but the only Chinese I know is "thank you", a few
numbers, and some food names (though I constantly get siu mai and
har gow confused -- shame on me!); I'm considering taking Mandarin
lessons, but it just seems far too scary. Comments?
Tara Bloyd (tabloyd@quotidian.com)