My maiden name was Cindy Butchee; I’m now Cindy Wilkinson. Hello, Googlers! Just thought I’d get that out of the way first thing.

I was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. I went to college in Memphis, where I got a degree in journalism. After graduation, I found out that writers make no money, so I went into the IT field. After college, I moved around to a few various locations across the US. I’ve lived in Washington, DC; Appleton, Wisconsin; and Worcester, Massachusetts. I finally settled in the Seattle area, which is where I met my husband, Dave. We’re both transplants to the Northwest, but we love it here and have no plans of leaving. We live in the boonies way east of Seattle, and we both work in Redmond. We have 4 cats, acquired completely by accident, but since we live in a farm-like environment, they keep the mouse population to a minimum, so we love them.

Speaking of my husband, Dave Wilkinson is also a writer and contributor on this site. He isn’t quite as chatty as I am, but you may find posts from him here and there. He’s originally from a little town in England called Carlisle (and he has the oh-so-sexy British accent to prove it), he has degrees in electronics and mathematics, and he’s a big computer nerd just like I am - although we work in completely different areas of the IT industry, so neither of us has any clue as to what the other person actually does for a living. We like it that way. We occasionally try to out-geek each other, to see which of us is the bigger nerd, but most of the time it’s just a toss-up.

So that’s our quick and cute little bio. Hope you enjoy reading poobou.com.

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Oh, and in case you were wondering what PooBou means, here’s the story:

Ever since I was a baby, my parents have called me Pooh, as in Winnie. For whatever reason, they still call me that. It’s one of those nicknames that absolutely mortified me in junior high and high school, but it just wouldn’t go away.

Also, my maiden name started with a syllable that sounds like Boo (Butchee), and I’ve had a few friends over the years who’ve called me Boo. Which, oddly, never bothered me at all — I think it’s kind of cute.

When I was about 18, one of my friends learned of my parents’ nickname for me, put the 2 names together and came up with “pooboo”. Since this was back in the early 90’s and Internet access was suddenly becoming really huge, I signed up for my very first AOL account (ooooh, 14.4K dial-up, baby!). I tried to make my screen name PooBoo, but that was taken, so I changed the last O to a U. And PooBou was officially born. Somehow it’s stuck with me for well over a decade now.

See, I told you it was boring.

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Update 2007: Our daughter Catherine Renee Wilkinson was born on January 27, 2007. I’m now working from home part-time doing a technical writing gig that is quite honestly perfect for a new mom.

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Update 2008: That plan about not leaving the Northwest? Yeah, not so much. As of now we’re in the process of trying to sell our house and move to Raleigh, North Carolina, so we’ll be closer to our families. Fingers crossed that it won’t take too long.