About Me

Family

I'm married to the lovely and talented Patricia. She inspired me to adopt a vegan diet that has helped me both to improve my health and to tread on the planet less heavily. Patricia makes a great chocolate cake.

In May of 2001, Patricia and I had our first child, Parker. In August of 2003, Patricia and I had our second child, Oliver. In January of 2007, we had our third child, Norah. In April of 2010, we had our fourth child, Declan. Being parents has changed our lives in wonderful (and sometimes difficult) ways, but the experience has been amazing. We get to have lots of fun together, as these pictures from Winter 2005 show.

Community

I'm involved in several community organizations; besides leading The Obscure Organization, I help provide web hosting and support for the Arlington Heights Civic Association. I also run the technology operations and software development efforts behind the DC bicycling community winter event, Freezing Saddles.

I regularly attended the One Laptop Per Child Learning Club - DC meetings and HacDc meetings, and I provided technology help for the Arlington Unitarian Cooperative Preschool, but I'm not regularly involved with these organizations today. I served as Treasurer of the The Arlington Cooperative Organization (d.b.a. The Uncommon Market) from May-December 2002, getting a fine practical education in the economics of distressed businesses, grassroots fundraising, and Roberts Rules of Order in the process.

Work

I am a Distinguished Engineer at Modus Create, a software product studio in Reston, Virginia. Previously I was a Sr. Architect at Blackstone Technology Group. Before that worked for Three Pillar Global, after selling them the consulting practice PKR Internet. I also worked for Microstate Corporation in the late 1990s and Intelligent Decisions in the early to mid 90's. See my LinkedIn profile or resume for more professional background.

Fun

I founded and still run The Obscure Organization, a community-based educational networking initiative. I started Obscure on a shoestring in 1995, gave out free accounts to people who wanted to learn more about Internet communications, and eventually (in 2002) got Obscure incorporated and registered with the IRS as a tax-exempt organization. Now that it seems that everyone and their uncle has an Internet connection, I'm helping the organization find a fresh focus on fostering community and creativity through technology.

I enjoy dining out at many of the fine restaurants in the Washington, D.C. area and beyond.

Creating original digital prints from pencil sketches and other source material makes me happy. I also like taking photographs, both artsy and the regular family-snapshot variety. I keep a loosely organized gallery of photos and other art as well as a Flickr account and an Instagram account.

I have many years of experience doing Linux programming and system administration, and I'm proud to support Free Software. From time to time, I share some of the software I've written with the world, for example, the patronus ghost login dispelling tool.

I have a great love for the Latin language and the poetry of Catullus in particular.

After a 10-year hiatus, in 2000 I rediscovered my love for role playing games, especially Kenzer & Company's loving parody of Dungeons & Dragons, HackMaster. I'm member #VA-1-01145-03 of the HMGMA :-)

Recipes

I enjoy cooking. Here are some recipes people have asked me to share:

Resume

I'm not currently looking for a new position currently, but I do maintain a resume here:

You can also see more details about my professional qualifications on my profile on LinkedIn.

Online Presence

Many of my friends are involved with the Internet in some way. These days, most of the people I know are socializing through Facebook, so I keep a Facebook page, but I also sporadically maintain a WordPress site I migrated from LiveJournal, along with a twitter account (@obscurerichard) and a MeWe account.

Contact Me

If you need to reach me urgently, please call my cell phone or send an SMS message to +1 571 236 0938.

For non-urgent communications, please send me email at rbulling@obscure.org

If you need to send me confidential communications, please use either Signal, Keybase, or PGP encrypted email.

Signal

You can reach me on Signal with my cell phone number, +1 571 236 0938

Keybase

You can reach me via Keybase also, I am obscurerichard there.

PGP Keys

To send me secure email, please use PGP to secure the message. You will need my public key - please use this ed25519 public key (freshly generated in 2023) with the fingerprint 0B89 E10F 7395 4F66 EB02 5590 3FD8 8959 6619 CF98. These keys can also be found on the MIT PGP Keyserver, the Ubuntu keyserver, and the OpenPGP keyserver by searching for rbulling@obscure.org.

Please note that I have revoked my old 1994 RSA and 1997 DH/DSS PGP keys.