About Toby

I'm Toby Mackenzie of Peninsula, Ohio.

Places

I have lived in Northeast Ohio my whole life. I started out living in Cleveland. At four or five, I moved to Lakewood. At around 12, I was torn away from my friends there to move to Peninsula. I've lived here nearly since then, with a four year hiatus to Kent/Ravenna as I went to the university there. I now live in a fine mobile home, on the cheap.

School

I started kindergarden at Lincoln Elementary School, where I spent a delightful six years. I attended Horace Mann Middle School for just one year before moving to the Woodridge School District. There I spent the rest of my grade school days. I then attended Kent State for four and a half years, majoring in Hospitality Management. I also minored in business and took some various other courses, including Computer Science, which I really liked. After graduating, I spent several years working as a line cook. During this time, I was expanding my knowledge of various programming and web languages, and my plans changed from a future in the restaurant industry to a future in the web development industry. Determining that I would need some sort of accreditation or/and experience before jumping into the industry, I began attending Tri-C to see what they would offer me. I stumbled upon the eBusiness Management Program there. It gave me a year long internship and a number of computer, business, and web related courses to take. I have now graduated and have my second degree.

Occupations

I have only worked two real jobs in my life. I worked at the Winking Lizard Tavern for just about 10 years. I started as a busser and dishwasher, worked briefly as a host, and ended up in the kitchen working various stations. It was a fun time, but it could be rough, especially in the busy summer. I also worked as a web development intern at RPM International. They are a large sealants and coatings company with many subsidiaries. I worked on some of their company websites as well as a number of charity websites there. It was a large change from the Winking Lizard. I very much enjoyed working on sites there, especially when some more difficult programming or database query problems came up.

Hobbies

I have always been interested in computers, and tend to spend a lot of time using them. I also enjoy a number of outdoor activities, including cycling, running, hiking, and sailing. I enjoy sports, especially dodgeball, but I have no one to play them with. I like music, both listening to it and playing it. I played drums in concert and marching band in grade school and a rock band for about five years. I now mainly am focused on playing keyboard for my own entertainment. I, to some extent, like working on my house and car. In theory, I like to create things, improve things, and organize things.