About Me

My name is Dominic Balbed. I am a senior Computer Science major at the University of Georgia. Much of my focus is in Web Development.

I am very passionate about solving problems and creating things.

Biography

I was born in Alexandria, VA, and moved to Georgia when I was five years old. Georgia has always felt like home to me. I attended George Walton High School from 2008 to 2012. Upon my graduation, I attended Georgia State University for a year and a half before transfering to the University of Georgia.

I have an eclectic range of interests, from music to programming, to politics, to astronomy and philosophy.

Computer Scientist

Since I was a kid, I've loved sience and technology. I used to play with circuit boards and electric train sets, and even once took apart my dad's desktop computer and reassembled it in a cardboard box.

My real love for computers took off while I was still in elementary school when I attended a week long Game Programming camp at Kennesaw University. Later that year I entered a local techology fair and placed third in the state.

For a while after that I persued other interests and it wasn't until I got to UGA that my passion for computers was reignited. I still can't quite put my finger on what it was exactly, but something compelled me to change my major from foreign language education to computer science and every day since I have lauded that decision as one of the best I've ever made.

I have significant experience in full-stack web development, primarily in the LAMP stack, as well as advanced training in Java and C. I also have great experience using software like Unity, Blender, Photoshop, Premiere, and Acoustica Mixcraft.

Musician

I began playing guitar in the eighth grade and have been writing and recording music ever since.

I have self-produced two records, "Essence" and "The Great Cosmic Beyond" which you can find linked on this page. You can also find several music videos on my YouTube channel.

I also had a great time playing with these guys at Smith's Olde Bar:

I was also honored to receive an Artist of the Month award from the Music for Good Chairity in February 2014.

Writer

I've always loved to write and words and language come naturally to me. Outside of class assignments, I began writing seriously in high school when I decided I wanted to make a short film. Over the next few years I wrote and produced three short films as well as two other feature length screenplays that were never produced.

Song writing has also been important to me since I began playing guitar. While I have only produced two albums I consider of any true quality, I have written many songs that have never been recorded.

And for the past several years now I have been working on my first novel, dubbed "A Kingdom's Tale", which follows the rise of a new world order 20,000 years after the fall of modern civilzation.

The development of this novel has given me an avenue to continue inventing the fictional artistic languages I have been playing around with since high school. I am currently developing seven artistic languages for the book: Eyornish, Vorsian, Raethic, Irasien, Quirsese, Lenthic, Dragomiren, and Azarian, all of which I will release language manuals for alongside the novel itself.