About

The Secret Lair is a podcast and blog which follows the real life “adventures” of Kris Johnson and Chris Miller. From the safety of the Lair, they will plan grand travels, trick unsuspecting victims into recorded interviews, plot the downfall of David Moore¹, project manage their goal of tri-county domination² and…frankly…talk about what catches their attention.

About Kris Johnson

Kris is a thirty-something Professional Computer Geek who lives in sunny³ Willoughby, Ohio. His personal secret lair is known as the International House of Johnson and is also the home of one wife, one child, two cats and the spirit of a small, angry, dead fish. The house is also home to a disconcerting number of spiders⁴, but Kris doesn’t like to dwell on that. Prior to becoming a professional geek, Kris dabbled in retail sales, agriculture and necromancy. In his spare time, Kris collects hobbies and avoids spelunking, base jumping and Ultimate Fighting. It is also possible to find him at KJToo.com, though his persistent presence there has never been satifactorily explained.

About Chris Miller

Christopher T. Miller stumbled into the web in 1987 has not looked back since. He discovered podcasting in late 2004, and before he knew it he was working with Evo Terra and Tee Morris on Podiobooks.com, which has since become one of the most popular sites on the web for serialized audiobooks. When not writing code, he is also the Co-Host of the Shadowdace podcast. Beyond his own podcasts, he has read for Escape Pod and enjoys lending his meager vocal talents to promos and episodes of podcasted fiction. In the past, he has also been a writer/publisher of role-playing games, a BBS sysop, a barista, a maker of golf clubs, a medievalist, an editor, and a Doctor Who fan. He lives in Cleveland, Ohio with his very tolerant wife, two daughters, one son, one frog, one cat, and one internet connection.

About Natalie Metzger (Secretary of Artistic Propaganda)

By day Natalie assumes the mild mannered role of a network systems administrator. By night (and weekends, and sometime holidays), she telecommutes to The Secret Lair, providing a webcomic and other illustration services the overlords require. She’s still waiting on the Secret Lair engineers to work out the bugs in the Matter Emitting Aura Transporter, at which time she may relocate her office to the lair.

A self-proclaimed ‘podcast illustrator’, Natalie has created many art pieces for several podiobook productions including the cover art for The Heart of the Hunter by Sam Chupp, PDF cover art and character portraits for Playing for Keeps by Mur Lafferty, and story illustrations for Murder at Avedon Hill by P.G. Holyfield.

Her current residence is in the ‘Couve (a.k.a. Vancouver, Washington) along with her husband, cat, and fish army (sadly, the fish army do not have laser beams on their heads… yet.) Natalie can also be found wandering the halls of her blog, The Fuzzy Slug, posting selections of her work and anything else that tickles her fancy.

About David Moore (Commandant of the Air Forces)

David is currently working a large project and has already worked over 60 hours in the same chair. Not a cool Overlord chair, Doctor chair, Sea captain chair, or his preferred Dirigible chair. Just a codemonkey chair.

A more reputable bio, fitting of Lord Vandermore, will be coming along after David has gotten both sleep, and his legs to be straight again.

About Dr. John Cmar (Chief Medical Officer)

John is a practicing physician in Baltimore, where he specializes in all aspects of infectious diseases, as well as training the next generation of Johns Hopkins doctors. He is also a practicing geek, which manifests itself primarily as a love of electronic, board, and roleplaying games, such as the gloriously involved Arkham Horror. Professional experiences that he is pleased to no longer be practicing in include minionhood in computer sales and service, as well as industrial lamppost forging machinist. In addition to giving progress reports on his nefarious medical endeavors for The Secret Lair, he has donated his vocal talents to numerous podcasts and audio fiction, including Mur Lafferty‘s The Takeover, and Escape Pod. He resides in the “suburban hell” of Columbia, Maryland, with his Moon Ranger wife, five cats, and a constantly depreciating number of fish. As the chief physician and sole proprietor of Saint Nickanuck of the Tundra Online Memorial Hospital, he rants about odd geek and medical sundries in it’s hallowed halls.

About Jay Lynn (Minister of Crackpot Schemes and Unfortunate Synergies)

Like his five year old son, Jay changes his mind nearly weekly regarding what he wants to be when he grows up.  Not surprisingly, “superhero” shows up on both their lists.  Often referred to as “Kingfish” due to his abundance of ill-conceived schemes, Jay has more ideas, designs, and business plans floating around in his head than ants at a picnic. A serial learner and entrepreneur, Jay has studied sculpture, business, theater, psychology, electronics, and theology. He has worked as a teacher, a missionary, a graphic designer, an illustrator, a web developer, an innkeeper, President of a small business, and an ordained minister.  Currently, he works as the IT Project Manager for a small state university, which means he has become a (professional) bureaucrat  (*blink*).   Jay lives in central Virginia with a non geek, but very patient wife, and two kids.  He cut his teeth in podcasting on the late great Geeklabel Radio, and now publishes his own podcast and audio comic book at www.metamediocrity.com. He also infrequently spills his thoughts and ideas to the world at www.jaylynn.com.

1. No, not THAT David Moore. The other one. Honest. [↩]
2. World domination is a big job. Best to know your limitations, we say. [↩]
3. If one allows for very, very generous definitions of “sunny”. [↩]
4. Where “disconcerting” is any number greater than zero. [↩]