The main reason you probably came to this page was to get contact information. All of my social stuff is on my friendfeed page. If you need to contact me you can email me directly at eli(dot)sarver(at)gmail(dot)com

My life’s story follows.

I was born in the Pittsburgh area of Pennsylvaina. My parents moved to my house in Gibsonia when I was about six months old. That was home for the next 18 years. When I was growing up Gibsonia was a one-light town on a state route road. The town grew up with me to become a sprawling mess.

When I was little, though, there was plenty of space to run around, with plenty of trails in the woods. Around the age of 13, things started to change. Commercialism started to come out from the city core and take over the town.

They tore down a trailer park (yaay) to put up a shopping center. That’s progress to most people, but a large number of the trails I liked were in the woods they leveled. They took my woods away, but since I was young I loved watching the massive grading machines take the hill of shale and level it. I still have love the grand scale of construction projects, whether the result is good or bad in the long run.

I suffered through high-school with a mixture of frustration and boredom, and I finally started going to art class, and that changed something in me. It really interested me, and beside that, I met a nice girl who I dated throughout the rest of my time in the joint. (The High School was designed by the same folks that brought us the Allegheny County Jail.)

I graduated high school and enrolled in the Art Institute, in downtown Pittsburgh. I only lasted about 6 months there, because the commute was horribly long and I got offered a job with Medic, doing data conversions starting in summer of ’96. I worked there for more than 11 years.

I moved to several places after joining Medic/Misys. First, I moved to Pittsburgh, into my aunt and uncle’s house after they moved to Florida. I also lived in Cranberry Twp. (Crider’s Corners, PA) for several years before buying my first house.

A few things to keep in mind when buying a house:

  • Character doesn’t make up for cracks and leaks and a lack of air conditioning
  • Never buy on the ground, if you can avoid it
  • Never buy a house in a bankrupt city.

I liked the neighborhood, and the neighbors, but my house was a royal pain. The night I moved was rainy, and water started seeping into my dining room. This led me to pull up the carpet. Good news: hardwood floor. Bad news: heavy water damage. I set to trying to restore it. I never succeeded.

I put about $8,000 in repairs and improvements into that home: a nice window for the bedroom, paint all around, and icynene insulation in the walls. I never did get to see if the insulation worked well. About a year after buying the house, I moved to Raleigh, NC to join the home office of Misys.

I moved to Raleigh, and after staying in a temporary home for a month or so, I signed on my current residence, a Condominium starting on the second floor, in good repair, in a prosperous city.

I was getting rental income from the old house for about a year while I waited for it to sell. That put me in limbo for a while. My mortgages totaled $1,400/mo, and I had a car payment and HOA dues to pay. The house did eventually sell, at about $15k loss. Lessons learned, and things have been better since selling my home.

I was the president of our condo association board. I made it through two years before getting tired of the petty sniping of a few more vocal residents of the community. We saw our way through a plumbing update (polybutylene to pex) and increased property values in the process.

In the previous two years, we’ve made improvements to the retaining walls of units, re-built a lot of the community pool, and replaced all of the polybutylene plumbing with PEX. Condos which stood months on the market before selling now sell in a week’s time thanks to reasonable prices, nice landscaping and no worries that the pipes will break. I think I’ve done a lot for the community and I will be happy to leave the board in a better position than when I started.

I left Misys in October 2007, and I’ve been working for a company called Pharsight since then. We recently merged with another company called Tripos, and we are working under an umbrella called Certara. I like working there in the quality engineering group.

In October 2008, I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus. It’s a daily struggle, and it consumes a bit more time that I wish I had to give. It made me realize that I need to live my life more, since I am faced with certain mortality. Disease does that.

In November 2008, I bought my first BMW, a 2004 330ci. Though it has its issues, it’s never a boring car. I’ve become passionate about it, since it sometimes takes my mind off my condition. I’m a member of the BMW CCA, and I hope to go on some safety school trips in the near future. Oh yeah, it’s bright red, a symbol of my willingness to change my life.

I recently started a second site, Efficienting and I hope to be useful to people who wish to save energy, time, and the planet.