Mo Hax

I really am just another avatar. Mo Hax started as a Second Life avatar name and has become something of a pen name and personal brand for Rob Muhlestein, the real me (pronunciation). As confusing as it sounds, some of Mo’s creations and writing are his own (for all the same reasons a writer uses a pen name and anonymity) but Rob claims most of it.

If you take nothing more away from reading this page, just know I love learning and helping others learn as a programmer, developer, adjunct instructor, mentor, and father.

Oh yeah, nothing either Mo or Rob writes, says, or does represents the opinions, policies, strategies, or directions of any affiliation, blah, blah, blah.

In a business context I support professional transparency.

How to Contact Me

• Join me on Twitter
• Email imohax on gmail.com
• Chat or speak with imohax on Skype
• Find me in Second Life
• Find me on mojules.com calendar
• Eavesdrop on my personal blog
• Check my calendar
• Make a donation or payment

Random Biographical Facts

Sum you up lists seem to be something of an unspoken requirement so here’s my personal tribute to blogger narcissism:

• I am a happily married 41-year old father to four boys
• I live in Mooresville, North Carolina (Racecity USA, NASCAR)
• I love endorphins, best Olympic distance triathlon time at 2:10
• I finished a marathon on 30-min a day and no long runs (don’t).
• I love tennis and play at about a 3.5 level (usually)
• I am a mean dodge-ball player
• I work from home mainly as a Software Engineer for IBM
• I wrote a secure, routed protocol running on 128,000+ servers
• I founded a small EDTECH partnership
• I enjoy creating 3D content mostly for Second Life and OpenSim
• I created much of Mo’s avatar from scratch
• I enjoy helping and founded the SL ‘IBM Mentors’ group
• I am an ISTE Docent 7-9 SL time every Sunday night
• I prefer Photoshop, Blender, Poser, and Inkscape for 3D work
• I use VI, Notepad++, LSLEditor, Visual Studio, Mono, and Eclipse
• I use OpenSim from desktop to preview content
• I contribute to OpenSim and Second Life
• I find video tutorials best fill the need to teach and share
• I was FiberNet’s Director of Sales and Webmaster at start in ‘94
• I created first web-based home page editor while at Teleport
• I lead creation of first Nike intranet (SwooshNet) for which …
• I received the There is No Finish Line award while at Nike
• I have coded Perl for more than a decade with CPAN contribs
• I once went to a karaoke bar with Randal Schwartz
• I created a live blog of the Winter Olympics in Nagano for Nike
• I have lived in Utah, Martinique, Barbados, Oregon and Tucson
• I was a Cruise Director on the Volga and Dnepr rivers in Russia
• I was a tour guide and courier in St. Petersburg, Russia
• I was almost arrested as a spy for using CompuServe in Russia
• I deeply miss the accessibility of the arts in Russia (Hermitage)
• I guided bike trips on the White Rim in Moab, Utah
• I was a river guide on the main fork of the Salmon
• I am still a skater dude and have surfed twice (wish more)
• I speak French and taught labs in college
• I loved Battle of the Planets (G-Force)
• I majored in Russian at BYU and enjoy Tolstoy most
• I find value and personal truth in many spiritual traditions
• Tolkien’s works are near canon to me
• I am thankful for C.S. Lewis and Joseph Campbell
• I most enjoy simple downtime with wife and family
• I love sushi, steak, and, yes, quiche, just not together
• I love to cook (and yes, I am part Swedish)
• I take my turn (Tue, Thu) with lunches and sending kids off

Some quotes, my own and others I value:

• Fun first, the rest will follow. (me)
• The Greatest Thing is to LOVE and be loved in return.
  La Plus Belle Chose c’est d’AIMER et d’etre aime en retour. (Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec)
• If great friends are gold, then social media is a goldmine. You just have to dig a little. (me)
• Do not underestimate the essential, unmeasurable human connection underlying all real business. (me)
• Fantasy is like iron, without some you’d suffocate, women generally need more, and too much is poison. (me)
• Do universal values come from God? Or does God come from universal values? (me)
• You are your brother’s keeper. (anon)
• I caught you a delicious bass. (Napolean Dynamite)
• God put you in my way. (Abou Fatma)
• Love is a sandwich. (me)
• Though the endings are never ever happy It’s the happy moments along the way that in the end Make it okay (John Ondrasik)
• There’s always a good, better, and best use of your time. (Dalin H. Oaks)
• A man needs to put his wife before himself. Can you do that, Peter? (Aunt Mae)
• The essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison.  (C. S.  Lewis)
• A day without laughter is a day wasted. (Charlie Chaplan)
• I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better. (Abe Lincoln)
• We may not be the same age as everyone out there, but we’re in the same age group. (U2’s The Edge, Bronx University, March 6, 2009)

But my all time favorite quote comes from Dicken’s character Vincent Crummles from Nicholas Nickleby. Some will call it sappy, tiresome, and typical of Dicken’s ‘excessive devices.’ I just love it:

“Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.”

A close friend once asked me while we were pondering past, present, and future, “Besides work, what would be your future if you could do anything with it?” It caught me off guard, I discovered something in the answer:

If I’d have had my way I’d be in Russia still, but as for future, I’d have a bullet bike, a laptop and a ‘flat’ in every country. I’d sample the people and food of every place on Earth and learn another three languages. But at the end of the day, my family rules it all. I would (and have) traded all of it gladly for them.

As for any sort of favorites list, well, they change to fast to list. If I really get to know you maybe I will share my real life blog site with you and we can be facebook friends.

Enough about me, time to put something out there that hopefully ends up useful, if for no one else but me and my need to take notes, but first some pictures I suppose: