My Background

I was born (10/10/62) in the automotive industry town of Flint, Michigan (and I escaped - alive and well).
I spent most of my time growing up in a small town SE of Flint called Goodrich.
It is a very small town - a typical "mill pond" town.
If you talk to any of the elder local residents about the history
of the town, they will tell you about how Goodrich was almost the state capitol, and
that the only reason Lansing was chosen is because it is more centrally located.
My wife, Vickie, grew up in another "mill pond" town called Fenton, which is located directly South of Flint.
Their pond is a little bigger however, and so is the town.

How did I get started in computers? Well, I had no idea (or at least not much of one) of what I was going
to do for a living before my senior year at Goodrich High. I was considering going into music at the time.
That was when my chemistry teacher brought in one of those famous Radio Shack
TRS-80 (affectionately known as the Trash-80) computers with 4K of memory. He later upgraded it to a
whopping 64K. I found myself writing BASIC programs (OK, I admit I wrote programs in BASIC) for extra credit.
I was getting  passes out of Study Hall in order to write programs on this computer. And, yes, I even skipped
some classes in an attempt quench my thirst for programming (I don't think they can send me
to the principals office now, can they?).

After high school, I received my BS in Computer Science (with minor in Mathematics) at the University of
Michigan.  After which, I took a job in Rochester (Minnesota that is).
At first, I was a bit unsure about moving away from home, but I grew to like travelling,
and enjoyed seeing different parts of the country.  In fact, I had moved to five other states afterward:
Virginia, Colorado, Ohio, Texas, and finally Washington (the state, for all of you in the East).

Today, I live and work in what is called the Puget Sound area of western Washington.
I like the mild weather out here, and I only had to grab and hold on to something once
during an earthquake in Seattle (I was even able to save my fish that were rocked out of
their mini-aquarium.  They survived for what must have been at least 20 minutes out of water.).
There is only one thing that bothers me out here, where it had never bothered me before anywhere else.
The thing that began to irritate me is listening to the national news and hearing phrases like: "Today in Washington...."
Referring to Washington DC as "Washington" can become quite annoying here in this state.  What makes
it so annoying is the work the brain has to go through when hearing such a story on the news.
First it sounds like it is something pertaining to here - Washington state, but then, when you realize
that they are talking about Washington DC, your brain has to take this "great mental leap" (a leap of over
2700 miles and 3 time zones) to reprocess the facts of the story. Your previously constructed
understanding of the story's juxtaposition to your world suddenly
becomes ludicrously false.  You have to transpose the facts of the story
through time and space. Then you have to reintegrate the facts within the new geographical,
temporal, and cultural context of the East Coast.  As the brain does this, it many times misses the whole
point of the story, and all its work ends up being for naught.

My Interests

Music

I like all kinds of music.  One of my favorites of current groups is the Blue Man Group.  I highly recommend seeing one of their concerts.

Ham Radio

My call sign is AC7FS. I am a member of the ARRL.