A little bit of everything

So, how do you nail this down, exactly?

When I describe my job to people, I like to tell them that while my business card says Screen Real Estate Agent, I’m more of a utility infielder. Simon introduced me to “factotum,” factotum |føkˌtoʊdəm| noun ( pl. -tums |føkˌtoʊdəmz|) an employee who does all kinds of work : he was employed as the general factotum.

ORIGIN mid 16th cent.(originally in the phrases dominum (or magister) factotum, translating roughly as [master of everything,] and Johannes factotem [John do-it-all] or [Jack of all trades] ): from medieval Latin, from Latin fac! ‘do!’ (imperative of facere) + totum ‘the whole thing’ (neuter of totus). and I think it’s apt. Lauren says she is sui generis and Cory says he’s a renaissance geek. Those work, too.

Sometimes I’m just slightly ahead of my time. I haven’t owned a land line since 2000, have been driving a hybrid since 2002, using a Mac since 1990 and surfing the web since 1994. When the Mosaic Communicator beta came out in late 1994, I remember sitting in the InfoLab, browsing HotWired 1.0, thinking “damn, this web thing is huge.”

I’m Canadian, and living abroad gives me the chance to be slightly more patriotic than I would be at home. Yes, I play hockey, and yes, I speak French. But the latter’s because I studied it in school, not because it was spoken at home. And I like poutine. And Québecoise accents. Mais oui!

I love to cook, and out of my kitchen comes numerous pasta dishes, stir frys and other creative whatever’s-in-the-fridge endeavors. Cooking is, of course, more fun when you cook with and for other people. I also bake a really good chocolate cake (no, you can’t have the recipe) and banana bread (you can have that one).

Starting with PageMaker 4.2 on a Mac Classic and my first Robin Williams book, I began to dabble in graphic design. I’ve been hanging punctuation, kerning type and putting together newsletters, books, résumés, programs and posters. Hopefully without stealing any sheep.

I’m constantly reading, and have amassed a small library. My problem is I acquire books faster than I can read them, with the unread count topping ninety. My favourite you-must-read-these books are Natural Capitalism, The Cluetrain Manifesto and Success is a Choice. More recent recommendations are among the your-conventional-wisdom-is-provably-wrong line of thought: Moneyball, Freakonomics, Blink and The Tipping Point.

Music is best heard live. Get out of your living room and into the local bar. What you hear there is so much better then the dreck being played on the radio. And just say no to TicketMaster.

I spent three years at Imprint learning to love to write. My bookshelf still has CP Style on it. I’ll correct your grammar, especially if you abuse the apostrophe. (Is there a Lynne Truss fan club?)

I like crossword puzzles, trivia, and watching Jeopardy!, but you could probably kick my ass at Scrabble.

When it comes to sports, hockey is my favourite. I’ve been playing since I was eleven. I like other team sports, too, and have played softball, volleyball and football and will try pretty much everything. These days, I’m mostly on my road bike (an old Fuji) while my much nicer mountain bike (a Rocky Mountain Fusion) sits neglected in my garage. I’ve got rollerblades that see regular use and some snowboard boots waiting to be tried.

When I’m not out at shows, on the rink or behind my PowerBook, I like arguing about copyright law, advocating for good customer service, drinking the occasional Canadian microbrew and wishing I wasn’t allergic to dogs so I could have a golden retriever.

Technology bio

Paul Schreiber has eleven years of computer industry experience, having spent time at startups (including one he cofounded) and large corporations. He has worked on projects in many fields, including nonprofit, media, education, manufacturing, music, auctions and operating systems.

Paul holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and French from the University of Waterloo (2001), and is an alumnus of Shad Valley Calgary (1996) and Nelson High School (1996).

Music bio

Paul has been involved in various aspects of music for eight years. He has attended hundreds of shows, written for Imprint and Emergent Music, sold merchandise and taken thousands of photographs. The cofounder and former architect for Community Musician, Paul now runs a successful house concert series.

Which Paul Schreiber?

I was the Paul Schreiber who went to Pauline Johnson Public School, John T. Tuck Public School, Nelson High School, the University of Waterloo and Shad Valley Calgary.

I used to hang out on FirstClass systems—the Daily Planet (Burlington), Magic and Sanctuary (Toronto), SoftArc and a few others.

I still hang out on a few mailing lists, like fumbling-towards-ecstasy, pho and headline-girl. I have contributed to This is Broken, Emergent Music, Yelp and the Freakonomics blog. I have accounts on several social networking web sites.

At Nelson, I kept score for the Mud Hens and answered questions for School Reach. At Waterloo, I wrote for Imprint, cofounded uwstudent.org, co-chaired SAC for a term, built the WatPubs web site, wrote software for OCO, helped out at WCRI, attempted to answer some Quiz Bowl questions and kept score and announced games for the Warriors.

I’ve worked at quite a few places.

The not-mes

I am not a writer for Newsweek, a Marine Colonel or a Major League Baseball umpire. My middle initial is not “D,” and there’s no high school named for me in New York.

I’ve never been to Schreiber, Ontario, but I hear they pronounce it funny.

Where you’ve seen me

Maybe at a conference. I’ve attended YAPC (2001), MacHack (2001, 2002), WWDC (2001–2005), Macworld Boston (1997), Macworld SF (2000, 2002–2006), my favourite, the O’Reilly Emerging Technologies (2004), Open Source Convention (2004), OS X Conference (2004), the Music Law Conference at Hastings (2004), CTIA (2004), DUX (2005) and SXSW Interactive (2006).

I presented at MacHack 2002 and WWDC 2005.

Perhaps you saw me at BayCHI or COBA. Or at a concert, standing near the front, likely with camera in hand.

I also like music festivals. I’ve been to Lilith Fair Toronto and Mountain View (1998, 1999), Hillside (most recently 2003), CMW (a few times), NXNE (a few times), the Oakland Art and Soul Fesitval (2003, 2005), the San Diego Indie Music Festival (2004), FAR West (2005), ROCKRGRL (2005) and SXSW (2006).