A Web Geek Takes Off His Mask - New York Times

A Web Geek Takes Off His Mask - New York Times: "Trains are a recurring motif for Mr. Ford - a towering, big-bellied, relentlessly polite man with a recent history of mainlining Diet Coke and Marlboros. Every few minutes, from the windows behind the computer table squeezed into a corner of his room, the F train, elevated high above the neighborhood, can be seen cutting a diagonal path toward the Gowanus and Coney Island.

It inspired the name of Mr. Ford's personal Web site, Ftrain.com, the font from which everything else, he says - jobs, friends, the book - has sprung.

Since 1997, Mr. Ford has honed his prose at Ftrain, experimenting with narrative architecture and programming derring-do, and spinning random thoughts or diarylike yarns about the life of Paul Ford - reared in West Chester, Pa., son of an English professor and a professional puppeteer, educated at Alfred University, 80 miles south of Rochester, a school best known for ceramic engineering."