I spent an enjoyable Father's Day today, pretty much following the script for a sterotypical Sunday afternoon in suburban America. I watched the Champ Car Grand Prix of Portland on TV and then barbecued spare ribs and asparagus for dinner.

While waiting for dinner to finish cooking, I started thinking about the times I'd enjoyed around the barbecue with my dad, who passed away less than six months after my two-year-old son was born. It suddenly struck me that the motion I used to turn over the asparagus mimicked the way he used to do it.

It got me thinking about what I would teach my son about cooking with fire when he's older. Will we start with charcoal to master the basics before switching to gas, just like people who learn to drive a stick shift even if they generally drive an automatic? Or will that be hopelessly old-fashioned? ("C'mon, Dad, that's like entering text with a keyboard.") In the end, it doesn't really matter. I just hope that years from now, he looks back with fond memories of the experience and finds something to pass along to his son.

Blogging has become very popular lately at Sun, especially in conjunction with today's launch of OpenSolaris. Looks like it's time for me to dive in as well.

So who am I? I'm an architect in the Solaris group, where I work on OS security features. For my first few years at Sun, I worked on Trusted Solaris, Sun's multi-level secure version of Solaris, and helped lead the effort to migrate some of its features into mainstream Solaris.

Before coming to Sun, I worked as an engineer or manager in UNIX kernel groups at several other companies. I can honestly say that the Solaris organization at Sun is the most impressive group of engineers I've ever worked with; it's a privilege to be a part of that team. I'm excited by the idea that through these blogs we can give the rest of the world a little more insight into what we do here and why it's such a special place to be.