Who I am and What I do – the updated-ier-er version

A bit of bio here. My name is Richard Côté. I’m a Canadian/British expat currently living and working as a software engineer at the Nestlé Research, in Lausanne, Switzerland. I lived in the UK for 8 years before relocating to Switzerland. I wonder how many times in a lifetime you can decide to just uproot everyone and everything and jump into the void. So far, for me, it’s been twice ;)

I’ve been married to Katy, the most wonderful woman in the world, since 2006 now and we have an (almost)teenaged beastie that loves to destroy the house, make noise and eat everything in sight. We have three Siberian Forest Cats, Tolstoy, Irina (but better known as Reen-pig) and Pavel. There’s also generally a supporting cast of fish, birds, rodents and sometimes even more exotic things. We also have an unhealthy fascination with Bobble, the little blue owl and Christmas.

I hold a master’s degree in Biochemistry, having graduated from at McGill University, in Montréal, Canada. I submitted my thesis on the characterization of the retinoblastoma binding protein 2 (RBP2) on august 31, 2000. My master’s degree was followed by a DESS (master’s level certificate) in computer science at the Université de Montréal, which was completed in 2001.

When I’m not knee-deep in work, I’m an avid reader. I love fiction, sci-fi, techno-thrillers and non-fiction. My all-time favorites include works from Terry Pratchett, Carrie Vaughn, Neil Stephenson, Peter Hamilton, Mercedes Lackey, Christopher Moore, and oldies but goodies like Jules Vernes, Arthur Conan-Doyle, Agathe Christie and too many others. These marvelous people are responsible for such characters as vampires and werewolves, the Free Bards, Captain Nemo and Phileas Fogg, all the Gen-X’ers, Shelock Holmes and Mr. Watson. These people help to keep me sane. I have so many books that I break my back every time I move, but I’m slowly moving over to ebooks to make my life easier. I’m always keeping an eye out for new things to read so if you have any suggestions, please feel free to drop me a line.

There’s always music playing around when I’m at work. I’m a serious classical music buff (Vivaldi and Liszt being favorites), but I also love Jazz (Gershwin, Diana Krall, Alain Caron, Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis), Rock (Steve Morse, Hendrix, RUSH), Metal (Metallica, Pantera), Blues (Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Otis Spann), downtempo (Saint-Germain, De-Phazz, Supreme Beings of Leisure, Dido, Delerium, Portishead) and Techno (Propellerheads, Paul Oakenfold, Crystal Method), as well as some golden oldies (CCR, Elvis, The Who, Santana). What I listen to depends on what mood I’m in and how bad a day I had at work…

For those of you still reading, I was born on Aug. 7th, 1975 in Gatineau, Québec. I lived 10 years in Gatineau, then moved to a little rural community called L’Ange-Gardien – where my hay fever and social life took nasty beatings. I studied science in CEGEP and moved to Montréal with a bunch of friends to go to University. Most of my friends went to Polytechnique (a.k.a. l’Ecole qui rend fou!) to study engineering while I went to McGill to study biochem. That’s when my english started to get better than my french. I now have to dust off the french, because in Switzerland find the french-Canadian accent “cute”. I’m sure it’s a backhanded way to tell me I sound like a yokel.

So, that’s a bit of who I am. To see most of the links on this page, as well as many others, check out my links page. A lot of the people responsible for making me who I am today can also be found on my Portfolio page. Please read the disclaimer for this blog :)