Email Al Sweigart [email protected]

CoffeeGhost is Albert Sweigart (but you can call him Al), a software developer in San Francisco, California who enjoys bicycling, reading, volunteering, network security, haunting coffee shops, and making useful software.

He is originally from Houston, Texas and went to school in Austin. He finally put his UT Austin computer science degree in a frame. He is a friendly introvert, a cat person, and fears that he is losing brain cells over time. He laughs out loud when watching park squirrels, and people think he’s a simpleton. Listening to NPR news reports has always been his cure for loneliness in an empty apartment. He is, of course, an atheist. For some reason, people give him Barnes and Nobles gift cards for his birthday with uncanny consistency.

Al dislikes verbosity, so he tries to keep this site terse.

Favorite quotations:
“A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.” -Abraham Maslow

“Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.” -Matt Groening

“No nation was ever so virtuous as each believes itself, and none was ever so wicked as each believes the other.” -Bertrand Russell

“This film was made for middle-aged men who in their youth dreamed of a pure life, faithful to their principles, but who, little by little, are transformed into ‘pigs’ through the pressures of working like madmen. Despite their intention to reject merely mercenary goals, they are drawn into the world of hyper-consumerism, and when they look for the purpose of their lives, they feel themselves alienated…these men live in solitude and regret.”
-Hayao Miyazaki, on his anime “Porco Rosso”

“Back off, man. I’m a scientist.”
-Bill Murray as Dr. Peter Venkmen, “Ghostbusters”