Temet nosce

C is my language of choice. But out of necessity I found myself in the world of UNIX and I still have a Sparc 20 running Solaris with dual everything sitting in my study. So then came scripting, which was familiar to some degree from the old days of DOS batch programming.

Then eventually, as it becomes for all programmers, learning a new language was intuitive to the point that they all began to reveal themselves logically regardless what I encountered. After making a living in the tenchnical aspects of programming and systems engineering I got bored and started using my programming skills for simulation. So that led me to things revolving around cellular automata, genetic algorithms, simulated annealing, adaptive resonace, and so on. And to this day I still like to take some data set and screw around with it looking for patterns and to see if I can make it produce any emergent hidden property.

Work history - Geez, I guess I'll list the ones I had the most fun with. Of course I had all the normal kid jobs; mowing lawns, working at a texaco gas station when I was twelve and getting paid under the counter, then a TCBY yogurt place and a Kroger's gracery when I was 16, 17, 18... that was between 1984 and 1990 when I graduated.

Just out of high school and into college, I started working in the computer science labs on campus. I was responsible for all newbie orientation to computers, be it for people learning Word Perfect, or taking a COBOL class.

There I met a few mentors. One was David Barros, head of the computer science department. I will never forget one day about half way through class his secretary came in, walk up to him and whispered something. A moment later he was walking out of the class room. He handed me his chalk as he passed by and said "Finish the class for me..." I was astonished to say the least. But I did it. And then it got to be a regular thing for me to teach his C/C++ classes. And I loved it.

By the time I was nearly twenty-one I landed a sweet job with the US Government working on the Superconducting Super Collider in Waxahachie, TX. And that was a bad-ass job. I was responsible for programming a reference line that simulated the pressure, temperature, and ambient noise effects on an 80 foot long 1 foot diameter coaxial 'tube.' This tube was a variant of the huge 54 mile tunnel that would be the particle path for collision event analysis. But the government was/is irresposible and shut the project down for some reason that I still can't figure out. That was in October of '93.

From there I was hanging out in old school dial-up Bulletin Board chat rooms when I happened to mention that I worked at the SSCL, and wham! I landed a job with AT&T as computer hardware 'mechanic.' just a year or so later It was an inglorious job at first, but it didn't take long for me to identify ways I could program solutions for them. I got raises one after the other, and as time passed I eventually was the lead for both the data (compter only) side of the labs as well as the metrology labs. I didn't really do much for the metrology guys, but since I was the go to man for just about anything in the labs, I had the responisibility by emergence.

That lasted until 1999 when I stopped cooperating with my direct supervisor over a disagreement on how copywritten software had to be handled. She could care less how many times I copied software for use in the field, and I demanded tracking on each distribution. This ended poorly for the both of us becuase by that time I had made a ton of money for my department, myself, and a stellar reputation for everyone on the quality of lab work all around. I had even taken on the task as QA for severeal years, and kept doing that job at the same time I administered literally everything else.

But the experience ended with a wonderful severence package for my lack of cooperation when it came to pirating and copying software. But I will say I had a complete blast the whole time I worked for AT&T. I got to rub elbows with some pretty fancy folks like whigs from Arther Anderson, Coopers Lybrand, National Instruments, and many others. But all things come to a close, and so did my time living in Arlington, TX. So I move to West Texas to a small town called Big Spring.

Guess what - there wasn't jack squat in the way of technical jobs way out there. I would have to found a job in Midland, Lubbock, or Abilene if I wanted what I had become accustomed to. Not happening. So I reverted to a lower station in life and took a job at a call center answering phones for AOL. Ha! Tech support for America Online was a true eye-opener to the massive world of internet newbies that really had no clue whatsoever. I did that for less than a year. I had the highest call time and my metrics said they should have fired me, but I always solved the customer's issue. So I ended up taking all the calls that no one else could get fixed instead.

That came to quick end and I managed to get myself installed as the systems admin for the call center along with two other fellas. So I had my normal kinda job back. The call center had between 200 to 300 computers on the call room floor at any given time, and they were in a constant state of flux with updates and new installations, upgrades to newer versions of windows etc. The network had three fiber nodes with redundant connections and two network closets besides the main server room. Everthing was running win server 2k and the clients were 2000 pro by the time we all got laid off. Ha!

That was a joke too. I was laid off on my day off of all things. HR called me in. By that time I had written quite a bit of software that automated just about everything from login scripts to unattended install apps written in C++ and even tweaked out imaging software for redistribution of floor wide deployments. The powers that be had decided to outsource the work of three people to a single young man with a company I won't name. Anyway, my co-workers were not too terribly happy with the whole thing. I kinda didn't mind so much becuase it was getting boring. My last task I can recall was taking apart a microsoft ergonomic keyboard and installing LED lights behind the keys for lack of something better to do. But the new guy had zero clue on how things were automated. He didn't even have the passwords to the backup tape system.

So after a week or so I went back up there. The code on the server room was still the same so I let myself in. There the young fella was. With a pile of mess on his hands and no where to begin. So I showed him all the passwords. How to handle the daily backups. How to restore stuff - everything... I even showed him how to change the code on the server room door.

After that I just started doing freelance computer work. And I still do. Who knows where I will go next. CERN. Uh, no probably not. On a side note I used temet nosce instead of nosce te ipsum for the cyber reference in The Matrix. Ugh - it's late and I gotta sleep now... I'll finish this laterzzzzz...