About Us

Max is a technical writer working for Expert Support, and looking for new opportunities. Robyn is also a technical writer, currently at Avanquest North America Inc. We adopted our newborn baby boy, Jack in January 2006, and are having a lot of fun (and, yes, some frustration) being parents. We have two cats, Sassy and Jinxy.

We met at Carnegie Mellon University. Max was a freshman and Robyn was a sophomore, both involved with Scotch 'n' Soda, CMU's student-run theatre organization. We became friends, and, on October 16, 1994, we became more than friends. Robyn graduated in 1997 and headed back to California, where she was a tech writer for Netscape, then Hotmail.

While at CMU, Max was one of the founding members of the improvisational troupe, The No Parking Players. We enjoyed our NPP reunions every summer in New Hampshire. Max graduated in 1998 and moved to New Hampshire, where he became a technical writer for Oracle.

Robyn decided that she'd had enough smog and high rent, and moved to New Hampshire to be with Max in October 1998. Robyn worked for E-Travel for awhile, then Oracle bought E-Travel, and she transferred to DocTools. (In an interesting turn of events, not long after her transfer, Oracle spun off E-Travel.)

Max and Robyn were married on July 27, 2002!

In 2003, Robyn was diagnosed with Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD), also known as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). Due to her medical condition, we decide to move back to California. On August 4, 2004, our offer on a house in Antioch, CA was accepted! We moved to California on August 23, 2004.

The move was tough on our 7 year old cat, Katchoo. She died of complications due to liver disease early on Labor Day morning, 2004. We continue to miss her. In November 2004, we decided that we again wanted to be a two-cat household, and adopted Giles, an 8 month old kitten, from a local shelter. The vet failed to notice that he had a virus known as FIP. He died on February 11, 2005.

The year 2005 was spent organizing the house and pursuing adoption. We were matched with a courageous young woman in October 2005, and were present for the birth of our son, Jackson, on January 17, 2006. Sadly, Robyn's grandfather did not get to see his 9th great-granchild. He died on December 30, 2005; a great loss for all who knew and loved him.

Parenthood took up 2006! We were able to go to several weddings, and Robyn was in one. As 2007 went on, we noticed that Robyn should probably go back to work. Robyn began working again in February 2008. To help in her pursuits, Robyn joined LinkedIn. Max also has a LinkedIn profile. Robyn and Max both write at LiveJournal, as rredhead and nppyinzer, respectively.

We are often asked if we still do theatre. We have not performed since moving. In 2003, Max played a young Albert Einstein in Picasso at the Lapin Agile, for which he earned an award nomination. Robyn was involved with the Nashua Theatre Guild, and directed the fabulous Talk Radio in spring 2002. She last had two lines (and a scream) as The Other Woman in NTG's production of Agatha Christie's The Witness for the Prosecution in April 2004. Further theatrical pursuits will depend on our parenting schedule.

Before We Were Max and Robyn

Max was born and raised in Pittsburgh (Pleasant Hills), PA. He attended Thomas Jefferson High School, and was active in sports, band, and, of course, drama. He went on to CMU, where he majored in Professional Writing and Creative Writing. He has been a technical editor, newspaper columnist, and reporter.

Robyn was born and raised in Pleasant Hill, CA. She attended Christ the King School, then College Park High School. Never much for sports (though Max is constantly teaching her the rules), she was quite active in drama and literary clubs. She chose CMU, mostly because her grandfather Joe Matoney went there when it was Carnegie Tech. She majored in Professional Writing and Performance Studies. She has spent almost 10 years being a technical writer, and enjoyed being a stay-at-home mom.