Welcome...
My name is William Shehan, also known by the nom de plume of "Novowels." Currently, I live in the Des Moines area of the black hole of America; Iowa. Here you can find out some information about my current career, some of my interests and influences, and a little bit about my online and offline social life.

Employment
I am employed full time at the Hy-Vee Conference Center, working on designing, updating, and maintaining the website for both it and the bi-annual wedding show that it hosts. In addition to that, I also help to run A/V during some events, as well as helping out with room setup, cleaning, and general maintenance. I've worked for the Hy-Vee corporation for the last 6 years, starting at the Distribution Center in Chariton, IA in late 2001 and transferring to the West Des Moines offices in 2003.

Web Design
I have been designing websites and web graphics since the late 90s. During the last few years of the millenium, I helped create and maintain a small network that hosted a number of video game related websites that had grown too large for the free services at GeoCities. The now-defunct 'Black Hole Network' helped me realize how much I enjoy webdesign and digital graphic work, and I have been doing it- primarily as a hobby- ever since. I work primarily with simple HTML and CSS, although I am teaching myself Flash and some scripting languages. I'm well versed in the workings of the Adobe line of software, particularly Photoshop (up though CS3). I also have a workable knowledge of The Gimp, although I use it much less frequently. Artistically, my designs strive to be simple, cohesive, and minimalistic.

Personal Life
Socially, I like to maintain a small group of close friends. I dislike large crowds, parties, and gatherings; I tend to eschew public places like bars and clubs if I can help it. I am lightly active on a handful of online forums and communities. In the past I've been involved in varying degrees with the (long abandoned) Marvel vs Capcom: The Site forum, Smash World Forums, the Internet Infidels when it was a part of the Secular Web, as well as stints at some of IIDB's splinter forums; including the Secular Life community and the Freethought Forum. I've also played the online lpMUD Nirvana on and off since 1996. I created and still post sporadically on the Attic Apartment, a communal blog with many of my real-life friends, and I maintain a MySpace page. However, my online presence has decreased in visibility drastically in the last few years.

Less Than Three
On the Internet Infidels forum, I met juiblex, aka Nissa Blagojevic, where we became good friends due to mutual interests, personality, and sense of humour. In July of 2005, I took a holiday for two weeks to Sydney during the course of which we met and quickly realised that our relationship could go beyond friendship. Although we were daunted by the prospect of a transcontinental long-distance relationship, (as well as other issues) we eventually decided that a successful end result would be well worth the challenges. Nissa has since stayed with me over some of her University breaks, visits that have served only to confirm and stregnthen the feelings we have for each other. I am currently working towards gaining permanent residency in Australia, and although we have some philosophical distaste for the institution, we are tentatively engaged to be married soon after I emigrate.