More About Me?

I figured I'd put a little more biographical stuff on here for future readers to know who they are dealing with... Who am I anyway? I am a white male from a fairly conventional background. Mom was East German and came over the wall in Berlin, emigrated to the west as a teenager, met my wild and crazy GI dad and before you know it, had me, got a start on my brother and then moved back to the states courtesy of Uncle Sam...

Had an uneventful childhood other than the fact that I managed to get started on the baby making stuff at the ripe old age of 18, but by then I had already enlisted in the ILLINOIS AIR NATIONAL GUARD as an Analog Flight Simulator Maintenance Specialist. Bottom-line, I worked on tube computers made sometime before Bardeen invented the transistor... The military eventually figured out that flight simulators don't fly and decided we should be replaced by civilian contractors thus freeing up those of us in uniform for "war skills." Having recently graduated from college (University of Illinois, 1987) I found a new unit in Massachusetts in Wellesley practicing a little known art referred to as "combat communications." I cross trained to become a Wideband Maintenance Specialist, or "radio repair man and microwave tower putter upper." Being in the Air Force, I was greatly surprised to find all we had available to us in this job were trucks and M-16's and jack hammers for driving stakes to hold up the towers, but lest I start complaining, let's just say we spent a lot of time mucking around in the mud, not "up up and away."

Simultaneously with all that, I was also building a career as a HARDWARE ENGINEER with Digital Equipment Corporation, working under the Ken Olsen, soon to be Robert Palmer era doing hardware logic and timing stuff... Eventually got into realtime software consulting for DoD contractors while at DEC, then software development process consulting, and finally travel burn-out... Went from there to RALSTON PURINA COMPANY, to become an Information Technology guy... Or as I like to say, a computer guy in a dog food company... They pumped me full of management and people training, most of which didn't stick, so I moved to TEXAS and became a product manager for BMC SOFTWARE, or as I like to say, a computer guy working for a computer company. Much happier place to be...

Personally, I was up to SIX kids by the time I got to TEXAS, but by then was also "single" and fancy free, when I ran into the love of my life, got married AGAIN and picked another four kids... As of this post, the age range goes from 10 to 25, so we really only have about 6 to worry about on an active basis, but whose counting...

As far as what I like to read... Mostly history, and to me history is about war and politics, so lots of biographies and such. Being born in Germany with my mom being full blooded German, I have a lot of WWII books and have bunch of material on Hitler and Goering and those clowns. Also a big interest in the Civil War and just other generally interesting things like the Transcontinental Railroad, Teddy Roosevelt, The history of Palestine and Iraq, The Paul Bremner book, and on and on... Currently reading ENDGAME as I mentioned before... I tend to be a pretty hard-core conservative (with gay friends and stuff, so its OK), so this is not on my normal reading list, but I have to admit I'm probably not the kind of guy you'll find in most republican coffee clubs.

And to add some additional color, based on some past relationships I have been exposed to EVERY wacko-religious cult and doctrinal permutation I think that exists, so while I don't buy into any of it, I have observed this stuff up close and personal, so some of that may bleed into my rants...

Oh well, enough for tonight... I have to pay some bills or they will turn off my lights, and then the ENDGAME may indeed be coming for me, so let's leave it there for now...

Comment back if questions and take it easy...