About Me
Professional Background
I have been a professional game developer for just over a decade now. I started as an intern at an internet gaming .com startup, worked as a tools programmer at a small porting house, headed up the graphics effort for the Microsoft / Digital Anvil game: Freelancer, was a lead programmer at Microsoft Game Studios, and am now working as an independent contractor and, hopefully soon, professional technical writer.
I originally started out, or so the story goes, trying to avoid a career in computer programming. I attended Stony Brook University in N.Y. where I studied archaeology but soon got distracted by the demo scene.
Up to that point only I had really only understood programming via my perspective as an occasional contract programmer: summer jobs, good pay. Real time computer graphics were much cooler.
I began by helping the demo group: PM, then jumped, almost ten years ago exactly, into game development.
Since that time I’ve worked on five or so projects only two(!?) of which have seen the light of day. The most successful being the game: Freelancer. Additional bits of my code has shipped here and there via the two internal technology teams that I’ve worked with.
Originally working in the realms of computer graphics and mutiplayer networking, I’ve more recently worked on engine design and applying systems and engine programming principles to game play code.
The last seven or so years of my career arc are summed up here.
A group of us almost formed our own company– lacking “only” for timely funding.
I’m currently taking some time off from gainful employment, and am working on a proposal for a game programming book — an introduction to the use of data in modern games.
I appear elsewhere on the net as well:
A famous footballer, however, I am not.
Personal Background
I’ve lived in Austin, TX. for the past nine years where I own a house with my girlfriend. We have two cats, one car, and too many days of high temperatures.
While much of my life revolves around work I always try to find a little time to read and a little time to write. Due to my girlfriend’s influence: I’ve learned to knit and even know the very occasional word in turkish.
Its worthwhile to say that I’ve been known by quite a few names. While I started out life named “Travis Eastman”, and worked professionally for a few years sans last-name as “Travis Lee-Paul”, about five years ago I finally settled on a name of my own: “Simon Travis”.
Contact Info
You can contact me via: 
“at” ionous.net, or by adding a comment to an appropriate post.