There isn’t really much to say about me. My name is Tarus Balog and I’m a geek. I got my first computer, a Radio Shack TRS-80, for Christmas in 1978 when I was 12.

I grew up in a small town in North Carolina, but left when I was sixteen to attend the North Carolina School of Science and Math.

From there I bounced around a bit. I attended Harvey Mudd College and Duke University but ended up graduating from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte with a BSEE.

I’m mainly known for being a free software nerd and working on the OpenNMS Project for 20 years. Since then I’ve worked at Amazon Web Services, and I currently work at Percona.

Ironically, I’m now living very close to the town from which I fled all those years ago, and we’re out in the woods on the eastern side of the Uwharrie Forest. While I couldn’t wait to leave when I was younger, to me it is now God’s own Earth.

As an old I still blog, and the easiest way to find out what I am up to is to visit my Planet page.