Joe Frambach

My name is Joe Frambach. I’m a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh, studying Computer Science. Here are some things that interest me.

Running
I started running in middle school, back in 1998, and kept running through high school and two years of college. Then I didn’t run for three years and got sloppy. Recently I decided to live up to a few goals, starting with the Pittsburgh Marathon. My old PRs (sub-5 1-mile, sub-18 5k, sub-29 8k, 18′6″ long jump, 5′10″ high jump) are probably unattainable; I might never see those times again.

Backpacking
Bear Grylls, Les Straud, Joe Frambach. Give me a 5-foot piece of rope and a burnt match and I’ll probably die, but give me 4 months of leave and I’ll hike 1,960 miles carrying under 25lbs of food and gear. A big shout-out goes to the leaders of Boy Scout Troop 248 of Oakdale, PA, for taking a bunch of rowdy kids to Philmont, NM in July 2000 to hike in the desert for 12 days. And then they did it again in 2004! Thank you for changing my life!

Cycling
I’ve become a proponent of people-powered propulsion, thanks to a co-worker who invited me to ride 150 miles from Cranberry to Lake Erie in 2006. Unfortunately, I didn’t own a road bike, so I used my dad’s 20-year-old Univega, brushed the dust off, and rode completely unprepared. I rode that bike for a while until Sour Swinger sold his Giant TCR due to military engagements. In 2009 I rode (mostly) from Pittsburgh to DC, and will bike the 150 to Lake Erie again this year.

Nerding
When I was 13 I found pageresource.com and read everything about HTML and JavaScript. I used Mozilla and Netscape Navigator like all the cool kids. Eventually in high school I picked up C++, VB, and Java, placed third in a state C++ competition, and decided what I would do with my life. Now I have a Bachelor’s from Pitt in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, and have a job staring at VB code. Thank you John Pollock.