About Shae Matijs Erisson
I was born in 1971 in Selma, Alabama, USA as Robert Benjamin Gilliam aka Ben Gilliam
I have three younger siblings, Amy Elizabeth Gilliam, Jonathan Walton Gilliam, and Mary Katherine Gilliam.
My father was in the Air Force, and later did radiation safety at nuclear power plants.
We moved continuously until I was fourteen or so. Except for two short stints in California, we spent eight years in Tennessee, where my father had a job near Oak Ridge National Labs.
I found the Internet in 1989, my senior year of high school. My uncle gave me a 
1200 baud modem, and I dialed into the local university's modem block where I could then telnet anywhere.
I finished high school and did a year of a computer art degree. I moved to Birmingham, Alabama to live with my uncle for a few years.
I discovered that some programming languages were free, and started learning Oberon, since it was also its own operating system. I was amazed that I could change the system as it ran.
I changed my major to pre-computer science, but had way too much fun taking classes in poetry, english, archeology, french, and other fun subjects. I never did get accepted into the computer science program, but I did learn a lot.
In one of my student jobs I started writing Java. 
That lead to my first professional programming job writing Visual Basic for a 65,000 line trust management application.
I spent some of my free time at the International House with the (attractive, female) exchange students from other countries. I was humorously called the token American, since I was the only US Citizen who spent time there without being paid to do so. In February of 1999 I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, 
and began taking Ritalin.
Suddenly, my life got a lot easier. My diagnosis and Ritalin prescription was a major life-changing event. After careful thought I changed my name to Shae Matijs Erisson.
I moved to Seattle for six months during the dotcom boom. It didn't work out well, but while I was there, I did meet a French/German woman on ICQ. I lived with her in Finland 
for three years, and then Sweden 
for three years. As of March 2006, I live by myself in Sweden.
Shae Matijs Erisson
Last modified: Wed Mar 8 14:08:35 CET 2006
1200 baud modem, and I dialed into the local university's modem block where I could then telnet anywhere.
That lead to my first professional programming job writing Visual Basic for a 65,000 line trust management application.
and began taking Ritalin.
for three years, and then Sweden 
for three years. As of March 2006, I live by myself in Sweden.