The Life and Times of Erik Selberg

1972	In 1972, Ryan Selberg became Principal Cellist of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, and with his wife Joy moved to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. In October, they gave birth to their first son, Erik. It was a moment my father will never forget, mostly because he was home feeding our dog Nuisance because Mom had told him it was going to be a long labor and he should make sure the house was locked up and the dog was fed.

1972

In 1972, Ryan Selberg became Principal Cellist of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, and with his wife Joy moved to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. In October, they gave birth to their first son, Erik. It was a moment my father will never forget, mostly because he was home feeding our dog Nuisance because Mom had told him it was going to be a long labor and he should make sure the house was locked up and the dog was fed.

In July of 1974, my brother Scott was born. Dad didn't make the same mistake he made the first time. This time, he waited until Scott was born. Then he took off to Banff on a tour with the Symphony.	1974

1975	The very next year, Dad became Principal Cellist of the Utah Symphony Orchestra, and so Mom, Dad, Scott, and I headed due south to reside in Murray, a little sub-city of Salt Lake City, Utah.

Star Wars first released.	1977

1979	Erik and Scott aged, the Symphony grew under the leadership of Maurice Abravanel, and the Selberg Family moved to Salt Lake City proper near Foothill Drive so that Erik and Scott could attend Indian Hills Elementary School. Erik starts Indian Hills in the Fall, and soon joins Boy Scouts Troop 202.

Erik leaves Elementary School for Junior High; skips 7^th Grade mostly because Philip Ku, who was in Erik's 6^th Grade class, did too.	1984

1985	Erik goes to Judge Memorial Catholic High School. It's interesting to note that there actually is a Catholic High School in Utah. It also doubles as the "prep" school in Utah.

Erik graduates from Judge and goes off to Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, PA. Fun fact: I just got into CMU and Penn. Didn't want to go to Penn, so I went to CMU, sight unseen. Lucky for me it worked out! Over summer, Erik finished his Eagle Project, and had the Court of Honor when he returned in December. Erik also pledged Kappa Delta Rho fraternity on Sept. 29 (Happy Birthday Dad!), and joined the lacrosse club (Go Plaid!).	1989

Erik graduates from Judge and goes off to Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, PA. Fun fact: I just got into CMU and Penn. Didn't want to go to Penn, so I went to CMU, sight unseen. Lucky for me it worked out! Over summer, Erik finished his Eagle Project, and had the Court of Honor when he returned in December. Erik also pledged Kappa Delta Rho fraternity on Sept. 29 (Happy Birthday Dad!), and joined the lacrosse club (Go Plaid!).

1989

1990	Sometime in January, at the Kilte Cafe in CMU, Erik meets Mary Kaye at breakfast through Erik's next-door neighbor and mutual friend Beatrice Guilleaux. Erik is a soldier singing in "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" for Greek Sing. Also helped build his first booth. In the fall, he was a Freshman Orientation Counselor, and hung out with a bunch of folks, including Mary Kaye. Unfortunately, she was dating a psycho.

1990

Sometime in January, at the Kilte Cafe in CMU, Erik meets Mary Kaye at breakfast through Erik's next-door neighbor and mutual friend Beatrice Guilleaux. Erik is a soldier singing in "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" for Greek Sing. Also helped build his first booth. In the fall, he was a Freshman Orientation Counselor, and hung out with a bunch of folks, including Mary Kaye. Unfortunately, she was dating a psycho.

Erik is one of the 6'+ Oompa Loompas in Greek Sing --- the orange makeup didn't come off for days. Help builds a booth --- Snow White --- and pushes buggy --- Hill 1 C Team. CMU Lacrosse Club beats Ohio State, Michigan in WVU Tourney! In the Fall, Erik is again a Freshman Orientation Counselor.	1991

1993	Erik makes Buggy B Team! Sings, builds too. Does a Senior Honors Thesis on Cryptography with Doug Tygar and wins First Annual Allan Newell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research. Erik graduates from CMU, and gets into UW for grad school. Fun fact: Erik didn't get into CMU. So much for cool award value! Erik spends summer at CMU working with Adam Beguelin on the Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM) Monitor, XAB, and then heads out west. Erik takes three classes for his first quarter. Big mistake.

1993

Erik makes Buggy B Team! Sings, builds too. Does a Senior Honors Thesis on Cryptography with Doug Tygar and wins First Annual Allan Newell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research. Erik graduates from CMU, and gets into UW for grad school. Fun fact: Erik didn't get into CMU. So much for cool award value! Erik spends summer at CMU working with Adam Beguelin on the Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM) Monitor, XAB, and then heads out west. Erik takes three classes for his first quarter. Big mistake.

Erik gets his head screwed on straight. For summer, heads to New Jersey for an internship at Bell Labs. En route driving from Seattle to Salt Lake to park his car (well, his Dad's, a 1969 Dodge Dart), he's run off the road by a maroon mini-van. Bye-bye dart. :( Mary Kaye (who's no longer dating a psycho) comes out to visit him, and something happens. Over the summer, Dad finds a white 1971 Plymouth Satellite Sebring Plus - the Polar Bear - for Erik. Under 100,000 miles on the original engine, and all it needed was a paint job and new upholstery --- it had been sitting in a barn for some 15 years in southern Utah.	1994

Erik gets his head screwed on straight. For summer, heads to New Jersey for an internship at Bell Labs. En route driving from Seattle to Salt Lake to park his car (well, his Dad's, a 1969 Dodge Dart), he's run off the road by a maroon mini-van. Bye-bye dart. :( Mary Kaye (who's no longer dating a psycho) comes out to visit him, and something happens. Over the summer, Dad finds a white 1971 Plymouth Satellite Sebring Plus - the Polar Bear - for Erik. Under 100,000 miles on the original engine, and all it needed was a paint job and new upholstery --- it had been sitting in a barn for some 15 years in southern Utah.

1994

1995	Erik begins work on the MetaCrawler, a parallel web search service. He uses it for his quals project, and presents the work at WWW'95 in Boston later that year. Over the summer, Erik rides StP --- the Cascade Bicycle Club's annual Seattle to Portland Ride. 200 fun-filled miles! The next week, Mary Kaye moves out from Pennsylvania to Seattle.

The "Bubble" as it becomes known gets into high gear, and after Brian Pinkerton sells WebCrawler to AOL, Erik, his advisor Oren Etzioni, another UW prof Dan Weld, and a host of grads form Netbot with some VC money from Arch Venture Partners. Over the summer of '96, Erik transitions MetaCrawler to Netbot and then returns to his studies in the fall. However, Netbot can't seem to figure out how to make money with MetaCrawler, so they license it to Go2Net, Inc. for a song.	1996

The "Bubble" as it becomes known gets into high gear, and after Brian Pinkerton sells WebCrawler to AOL, Erik, his advisor Oren Etzioni, another UW prof Dan Weld, and a host of grads form Netbot with some VC money from Arch Venture Partners. Over the summer of '96, Erik transitions MetaCrawler to Netbot and then returns to his studies in the fall. However, Netbot can't seem to figure out how to make money with MetaCrawler, so they license it to Go2Net, Inc. for a song.

1996

1997	Erik gets back to the ol' doctorate and finishes his General Exam. Along the way, Netbot gets bought by Excite, and the Internet Bubble is on!

By the time '98 is done, Erik has decided "He's done" and is going to walk in '99.	1998

1999	In January, now that he has some cash, Erik gets the car he's always wanted: a '99 Saab 9-3 SE convertible! Thus, he stops putting major miles on the Polar Bear. Around March, Erik realizes he's pushing it to get the thesis done. So, abandoning everything else, he puts his head down and cranks it out. Mary Kaye does tons to keep him sane. And then, he's done! The second person in his class to graduate with the PhD, Erik becomes Dr. Erik in June of '99, just six years after he entered the program. Later on that year, Erik & MK buy a house and have a lovely vacation in Hawaii! Ah, the good ol' days. Erik's advisor, Oren, left UW on a 1-year sabbatical to join Go2Net, and Erik heads over when he's finished to be reuinited with MetaCrawler.

1999

In January, now that he has some cash, Erik gets the car he's always wanted: a '99 Saab 9-3 SE convertible! Thus, he stops putting major miles on the Polar Bear. Around March, Erik realizes he's pushing it to get the thesis done. So, abandoning everything else, he puts his head down and cranks it out. Mary Kaye does tons to keep him sane. And then, he's done! The second person in his class to graduate with the PhD, Erik becomes Dr. Erik in June of '99, just six years after he entered the program. Later on that year, Erik & MK buy a house and have a lovely vacation in Hawaii! Ah, the good ol' days. Erik's advisor, Oren, left UW on a 1-year sabbatical to join Go2Net, and Erik heads over when he's finished to be reuinited with MetaCrawler.

Erik and Oren fix MetaCrawler up, and then both leave Go2Net before it is aquired by InfoTanic^^^^^Space. Erik joins a little company called FizzyLab that is working on a query-by-example search engine, Oren returns to UW. Oh, and Erik finally proposes to MK. :) MK decided to go to law school, and enters Seattle U. She also picks up a new 2000 GMC Jimmy. Sadly, Erik's great-uncle John Marcinkevich passes away February 15th that year. RIP Johnny.	2000

Erik and Oren fix MetaCrawler up, and then both leave Go2Net before it is aquired by InfoTanic^^^^^Space. Erik joins a little company called FizzyLab that is working on a query-by-example search engine, Oren returns to UW. Oh, and Erik finally proposes to MK. :) MK decided to go to law school, and enters Seattle U. She also picks up a new 2000 GMC Jimmy.

Sadly, Erik's great-uncle John Marcinkevich passes away February 15th that year. RIP Johnny.

2000

2001	FizzyLab goes flat in January, so Erik takes some time to look for a new gig. Luckily, he's also got some time with MK to plan the wedding, and on July 20th, they have a lovely ceremony before heading down to Cabo San Lucas for their honeymoon. Just prior to the wedding, Erik landed a new job at RealNetworks. The only scary bit was at LAX on their way to the honeymoon, they saw that Real had just laid off some ~150 folks. Great timing. :) Erik called his new VP and was assured he didn't need to take more time, but it was quite the experience when he returned. However, he made the best of it, and helped the company ship the initial RealOne Player that year. In November that year, Erik and MK also get the first addition to the family: a cute little lemon beagle named Copper! Also, Erik gets T-boned while on the phone with his Dad in the Saab - a Nissan ran a red light and plowed into the Saab. Amazingly, they fixed it, although Erik's now happy he got it on the lease as it's going back in a few years now. :)

2001

FizzyLab goes flat in January, so Erik takes some time to look for a new gig. Luckily, he's also got some time with MK to plan the wedding, and on July 20th, they have a lovely ceremony before heading down to Cabo San Lucas for their honeymoon. Just prior to the wedding, Erik landed a new job at RealNetworks. The only scary bit was at LAX on their way to the honeymoon, they saw that Real had just laid off some ~150 folks. Great timing. :) Erik called his new VP and was assured he didn't need to take more time, but it was quite the experience when he returned. However, he made the best of it, and helped the company ship the initial RealOne Player that year. In November that year, Erik and MK also get the first addition to the family: a cute little lemon beagle named Copper! Also, Erik gets T-boned while on the phone with his Dad in the Saab - a Nissan ran a red light and plowed into the Saab. Amazingly, they fixed it, although Erik's now happy he got it on the lease as it's going back in a few years now. :)

Erik & MK's luck with cars continues - d'oh! In May, just after MK dropped Copper off at the kennel for a week's vacation in Florida to see Kevin Snyder's wedding, MK is rammed from behind by an F150, killing the Jimmy. :( Later that year in August, a habitual drunk driving a rag-top white Miata side-swipes Erik in the Polar Bear on the Aurora Bridge. Erik drives home, but it's some $3,000 damage to the car. The drunk? Well, get this. After some months, he ends up pleading down from a DUI, as he doesn't want a DUI charge on his record. Why? 'cuz he's working on his second liver as he has Hepetitis C, and he doesn't want to get off the transplant list for his third! Y'know, "No liver for you!" When Erik & MK return from Florida, they rescue another lemon beagle, Dodger! And then, later on in November, Erik & MK find out they're pregnant! w00t! Guess when the expected date it? July 20, 2003.	2002

Erik & MK's luck with cars continues - d'oh! In May, just after MK dropped Copper off at the kennel for a week's vacation in Florida to see Kevin Snyder's wedding, MK is rammed from behind by an F150, killing the Jimmy. :( Later that year in August, a habitual drunk driving a rag-top white Miata side-swipes Erik in the Polar Bear on the Aurora Bridge. Erik drives home, but it's some $3,000 damage to the car. The drunk? Well, get this. After some months, he ends up pleading down from a DUI, as he doesn't want a DUI charge on his record. Why? 'cuz he's working on his second liver as he has Hepetitis C, and he doesn't want to get off the transplant list for his third! Y'know, "No liver for you!"

When Erik & MK return from Florida, they rescue another lemon beagle, Dodger! And then, later on in November, Erik & MK find out they're pregnant! w00t! Guess when the expected date it? July 20, 2003.

2002

2003	The first part of 2003 is all about MK. She finally graduates law school (cum laude, no less!) and the rest is all about the baby.

	2004

2005

Last modified: Thursday, 03-Jun-2004 15:44:18 PDT