The following is an informal bio on one of the rarest (one of a kind in the whole world) sample of the species Homo Sapiens Sapiens who goes by the name Anoop John in bureaucratic circles (like when it fills forms) and who goes by the pen name - Minking Than (a very complicate play on words created using the spoonerism algorithm).
Unless you are very keen on reading a crude life history you might find the following sections very boring. If you are looking for a more formal profile you might want to look up this creature's LinkedIn profile which you will get if you do a Google Search on its formalized name (of course - what else did you expect).

The author has to move to first person narrative in the following paragraphs as it is very difficult to maintain a third person narrative especially when describing about the author himself.

I have this terrible affliction where I don't remember most of the events and people in my past. I have very good memory when it comes to facts and textual information but video and audio - very bad. So the early days of my life as recorded below is probably all what I remember (mostly) of my life during those periods. The ratio actual:recorded memory obviously would be higher for more recent times but have been maintained so because I wanted to get this done in a day.

Name

Anoop John (wasn't that obvious from the URL?)

Age

Keeps changing every day but was 28 years and 7 months old to the dot when I posted the first post on this blog - i.e. rounding off on the hours, minutes, seconds, milliseconds and so on.

Schooling is not normally mentioned in educational profiles but I think it is a good avenue to connect with alumni from schools where I studied.

Pre-Schooling

I don't quite remember the names of the institutions where I did my primary schooling and 1st standard. I know I skipped my LKG and UKG feigning total dislike of organized education especially given the fact that younger sister was relaxing at home at that time. My parents however succeeded in putting me to a year of Balavadi but strictly under the condition that they send my sister with me to school, which they did to get me to go to school. I know that the Balavadi was near Ambalappuzha Temple but nothing more. I also remember that I was denied my siesta at the Balavadi under special instructions from my parents who wanted the poor teachers to teach me whatever I missed by not going to LKG and UKG. This was in academic year 1984-85

Primary and Middle Schools

I did my class 1(1985-86) in a school in Nangiarkulangara (near Cheppad) which was run by Christian Nuns but I have no recollection of the name. I remember the names of two of my classmates - Surya Panicker, a girl who was my close competitor in exams. The other name is one Toby who was my closest friend in class. We were so thick friends that my mother had terrible difficulty in convincing me that we had to move our base when she got a transfer. I have always wanted to get back in touch with him - just for the heck of it - but have not succeeded in doing that so far. I should probably put in some concerted effort for that some time. I had once gone to the school to check up old records but had failed to pull out any clues then.

Then I went on to do Classes 2, 3 (1987-89) at Cross Roads English School, Pampady. I remember a Maggi miss at the school and most of my friends - Jubish Jacob, Jobin Korah, Aju Ipe, Febin George, Geeta Panickar, Anupama - Oops, if not most, at least some of my friends. One thing I remember about that period in life was that I used to fall down and get injured almost every single day and the nurse used to put Tincture of Iodine on my wounds - which had almost always inevitably resulted in my standard high pitched shrieks. I think I lost my shriek some time along the way as I grew older, should try it out when I go hiking some day.

High School

Then I did my classes 4 to 10 (1989-1995) at BMM English Medium School, Pothenpuram. I liked the school and the teachers. I think I remember all my friends at least those who completed 10th with me (there were only 15 who was with me in class 10). The teachers were fantabulous and this 7 years was complete fun (of course interspersed with homeworks, exams and studies).

There is one event that is worth mentioning here. I had attended the NTSE coaching camp conducted by SCERT at DIET Thrissur in 1995 during the summer vacation after class 10 and at the camp I came in touch with some excellent people from across Kerala. If you are one of them join this orkut group for NTSE Campers of 1995. I got in touch with quite a few of them later in life but lost touch with a large number of people I had befriended there.

I did my 11th and 12th (1995-1997) at St. Antony's Public School, Anakkal, Kanjirappally. One thing I remember distinctly was that I used to play cricket almost every day at school and came back dead tired and slept :-). I remember all my classmates and we still do keep in touch through our mailing list although the number of mails/month have been growing inversely proportional to the time after course completion.

Undergraduate and Graduate Education

I did my B Tech(1997-2001) in Electronics and Communication from College of Engineering Trivandrum and that was probably the best period of my formal education. My horizons widened, got stronger in my convictions, rational framework and got some very good friends. Of course I learned some electronics and communication along the way.

I then did my M. S.(2001-2003) in Electrical Engineering from Penn State University. We had a large gang of friends from CET at the university and it was fun time again. I also worked part time as Research Assistant at Dr. Hiroshi Akashi's Bioinformatics Lab. I learned to enjoy being a workaholic there. I also had a lot of free time to read and think during these tension free two years.

Employment

After completing formal education (at least pausing temporarily for the time being) I joined IDSiGIS(2003-2006), a company based out of New Jersey, USA. I joined as a Software Engineer and left the company as Design Lead. This was where I perfected my workaholic schedules. Sleep-Work-Sleep. I enjoyed the workload and thrived in crunching it and was awarded a foundation award when I quit the company.

Then the remaining is history. I came back to India and set up Zyxware in 2006 and have been tending to it since then. Whatever has happened after that is more or less documented here and at the company website as I have ceased to have any life other than my work after that. My work is my life and my life is my work - Simple Isn't it?

See where Anoop John lives, on wikimapia