I was born on May 15, 1977. I lived in Thornton, CA until I was old enough to go to Kindergarten, when my family moved to Galt, CA so that I could attend a better grade school. Galt was a very nice, small farming community for my childhood years, although it has grown to be quite large now (about 10K people). I graduated from Galt High School in 1994, one of the top students in my class. I barely missed being the Valedictorian, or Salutatorian, and came in #3. Sadly, there's no cool Latin name associated with being #3, so I made one up and dubbed myself the Trecertorian.

I went on to attend Cosumnes River College for the next few years, getting most of my general education requirements out of the way. Then I moved to downtown Sacramento, CA and transferred to California State University Sacramento (CSUS). I took classes there for a couple years, had a couple classes with really bad instructors, became disillusioned, and took a break from college for a year. Then I wised up and went back, finally getting my Bachelor’s degree in biology in 2001.

I've been working ever since I turned 16. I worked full-time at a pizza parlor as the night-shift manager for a few years, worked briefly as a pharmacist's assistant, and then got a job as a student at the Air Resources Board (ARB). I made a good enough impression while working at the ARB as a student that I was hired on full-time as an Air Pollution Specialist as soon as I got my degree. In spite of working full-time in my new capacity as an Air Pollution Specialist, I quickly got bored, so I started taking graduate classes in molecular biology at CSUS.

In Jan 2004 I married my girlfriend, Elizabeth Ann Wager. We eloped in Las Vegas, where we were married by an Elvis impersonator. In September 2005 our daughter, Olivia Rose Randall, was born. She's awesome.

While still working full-time, and dealing with the new experiences of marriage and being a father, I continued to take from two to six units every semester. The classwork associated with getting a master's degree isn't too bad; it's the research that will kill you. I spent a LOT of late nights at the lab. At least once a week I would work at the ARB from 7am till 4pm, then go straight to school and work at the laboratory until midnight, then wake up and go to work at 7am the next day. I also fit in a bit of research during my lunch break on most days. It was grueling. To make things worse, I had many problems with my research, often due to things that were out of my control, which was frustrating. But as difficult as research is, it is also very rewarding. I was able to make a lot of progress and achieve my goals, as well as establishing a set of protocols for future students working in the lab. I finally earned my master's degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology in December 2006.

As you can see from the art section of my website, I'm always involved in art of some type or another, and now that I am through with school, I've been trying to devote even more time to art and my new pastime, writing children's books. I also try to fit in fishing trips and antiquing (well, garage saling, actually) as much as possible.