I started out in help desk & teaching Microsoft Office to the technology-challenged in 1997. From there, I learned what "FTP" and "HTML" meant, made a little intranet, some online company newsletters, uploaded a few weekly files and eventually found myself with the title of Web Technologies Instructor & a few Macromedia (now Adobe) certifications (Instructor, Dreamweaver Developer, and Flash Designer). A 3 year stint in Prague (Czech Republic) teaching English showed me that I love teaching but technology was my long-lost lover. I returned to both the States and technology.

Now, still Certified with Adobe, I primarily teach ConnectPro & Presenter for Brookwood (from my home in Los Angeles), and do a bit of web development on the side. I've recently returned to school to finish my degree in CS: Web Programming, to expand my work beyond just the front end.

I'm a genuine geek. I live this stuff and I spend an obscene amount of my spare time in front of my laptop - playing with code, tweaking wordpress, brushing up on software, reading about new technology and best code practices. I offer up blogs and websites to all my friends, because, quite frankly, there's nothing I enjoy more than sitting here with my iPod, coding away. Realizing the importance of social media marketing tools, I tweet all day and am a self-professed Blog Queen.

You'll have to pry my laptop out of my cold, dead hands.

My favorite movies are sci-fi / action / horror / adapted from graphic novels or video games, have lots of car chases and people with guns, or female assassins. (My latest favorite movie is The Midnight Meat Train.) I listen to Japanese trip-hop, French electronica and rap in foreign languages. I don't do chick flicks. Or chick music, for that matter. That's not to say I don't appreciate other things - there are a whole bunch of wonderfully sweet & introspective Czech films that I love, as well as artsy French movies.

When not watching House or craptastic movies, I love to travel and take a lot of photos with my Sony a100 DSLR - probably the best gift I've ever gotten. In Prague, I had started the official Prague Stitch 'n Bitch. (That means I knit. I'm nothing if not well-rounded.) I make a mean brunch & chocolate cake and I'm probably the only person on the planet who moved to California and STARTED eating meat again. (After 21 years of abstaining from the red stuff, I've now eaten veal. There's no going back.)

I believe, firmly, in bagging my own groceries.

Oh, and before you ask, no, that's not a typo and no, my parents weren't trekkies - It is Nichelle with an N, but you can call me Nikki.

Some of my favorite sites:

I'm an ex-everything Renaissance person who's perfected the high art of the permanent identity crisis. My attitudes and opinions change daily, so please don't try to nail me to the facts. I like to smoke while jogging, sip martinis with my brown rice, and skim Shakespeare while watching reruns of "Roseanne."