Jake Gordon

About Me - Jake Gordon (Jacob Barrie Gordon)

This site mainly serves as an archive of my travel diaries and thoughts between the ages of 18 and my early 20s, before the word 'blog' was even a thing.

You should probably check my GitHub profile instead today.

Born in Stone Park Hospital, Bromley on the 21st March 1982 to Barrie and Catie Gordon, I've continued to live in Bromley all my life so far. I went to St. Mark's Primary School and then St. Olave's up to the end of sixth form. After a gap year working and travelling, I started at Nottingham University in 2001, originally reading digital business but switching to sociology during the first week. My main reason for going is not to get a degree, but to enjoy my time there. However, I've taken a distinct liking to sociology, and recently completed my dissertation on the unsustainability of industrial capitalism because of long-term problems with cheap energy and full employment.

After numerous horrible highstreet jobs, such as working as a glorified binman at Marks and Spencer, I decided to develop websites, and have been doing so since 1998. At first, I was self-employed trading as 'InFrame Internet Development' to make some money during the sixth form. In 2001, I joint-founded Estate Angels, which is currently one of the top 10 property websites in the UK. I programmed the original site, but now act as a director-cum-technical-consultant. I now try to limit programming to a minimum, spending some spare time and on various projects such as the Derby Hall Yearbook. I also moonlight on various small projects which I find interesting. With my university 'career' now coming to an end, the current plan is to start a company making yearbooks and sell that company or franchise it out after a year.

In my gap year before university, I worked for half a year to make money, then travelled. I visited India, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Australia. You can read about this by searching the news on this site, or you can look at my gap year travel photos. Travelling was definitely for me, and after this year out I decided I'd try and do it as often as possible. Unfortunately though, it wasn't until summer 2003 that, apart from a short trip to Europe, I really did any more. But during summer 2003, I went to Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Belize and Cuba. Again, you can veiw these travel photos too. It was my Oma's (father's German-born mother) dream to go on the Trans Siberian Railway, so in Spring 2004 we went, with my brother and aunt Margaret, on a killer trip. We started in Moscow and went overland to China through Mongolia, stopping off at various places along the way. Then, from China we went to Japan for a few days.

I'm a sporty person, and especially enjoy swimming and squash. I play squash a few times a week when I can, usually against Peter NG at home who I beat about half the time. When travelling, I especially enjoy hiking up mountains and going for runs along the beach at sunrise and sunset. In my third year at uni, I also took up trampolining which I've had a fantastic time doing. We have a website.

I have a love-hate relationship with computers. Whilst I find them extremely useful, and indeed make a living through them, I also get easily annoyed with them. They're often badly designed in terms of usability, and I can't wait until screen technology reaches the point where looking at a screen is equal to reading a piece of paper. Until then, they are without a doubt bad for my eyes.

My idea of hell is working 9-5 in front of a computer for 40 years of my life. By running my own businesses, I can avoid this and also hopefully make enough money to be able to carry out various exciting projects I have planned to prepare our society for a workerless future in which true freedom can be expressed.

    Jake (updated: 4th May 2004)

You can also find out about my family.

by Jake Gordon, some rights reserved