As of September 5th, 2013, I became a 60 year old, spelling bee champ, 1970’s vintage and older auto mechanic and engine builder, off-road 4×4 enthusiast, electronics technician, and PC tech geek.
My experience with PC’s goes back to the days before mice and a GUI. I taught myself how to use a PC, IBM PC-DOS & MS-DOS, Basic, how to create ANSI graphic screens, how to program REALLY basic “Dungeons & Dragons” maze games, and to configure & operate a Tandy CoCo II, using cassette tapes for data storage.
From that point, my learning progressed as access to newer machines or funds allowed. Along the way were a few other machines from non-DOS manufacturers.
In the mid-1980’s I gained unfettered access, for the first time, to the IBM PC, Jr. machine through a “windfall” experience at work, and a “bleeding edge” Tandy 386 my Dad bought to operate QuickBooks on for his construction company.
By the late 1980’s, he tired of coming home to find me using it. I was married at the time, and NOT living at his home. For Christmas of 1988, he bought my family our first complete PC system; a Tandy 386 w/64K RAM, a 5.25” AND 3.5″ floppy-based PC, with a 16-color CGA monitor, and an entry-level DMP printer! Merry Christmas!
From 1995-1998, was a certified Novell Advanced Admin (NOT a “paper” cert! I earned it with my arms elbow-deep in hardware) PC builder/installer/troubleshooter and PC desktop OS (Win 1.x thru Win 3.? w/networking) and OS/2 (God save us from IBM, please!) support tech.
I was also an Application Support Specialist, and Novell GroupWise 4.x & 5.x Admin w/5000+ users in the Clark County (Las Vegas), Nevada County Government. I had only my last two exams (the big ones) to pass to have earned my Engineer cert. I then left the big city, moving to the Midwest to prepare for the aftermath of Y2K.
I considered it not simply a potentially serious threat, but also a Golden opportunity to rebuild community control of our country from the trash heap of centralized control in D.C. There was not a more disappointed man in America by Jan 2nd, 200 than I. So, I became an Independent Owner/Operator, driving my own 18-wheeler hauling freight. Successfully I might add, until the economy tanked in Q1 of 2009.
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Davids' thoughts, ideas, feelings & philosophy 