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I was born in Stuart, Florida which is located in southeast Florida. Sunny Florida, and most of all - HOT Florida. The humidity matches the temperature except when it drops below 85 degrees. Then it stays at 85% humidity regardless of the temperature. I moved from Florida to Colorado where I've been living on and off (mostly on) since Halloween night of 1973. I really love the weather in Colorado, although I still call Florida my home. The way I figure it, I'm just living here until I move back to Florida (for the third time). Problem for me is that most of my family is still in Florida so I don't get to see them very much any more. I have relatives in the Carolinas and Georgia (we're Southerners), but with the exception of my grown children and some not so grown children, that's where everyone resides. Can't beat the weather here in Colorado though, it's great! Forget what the temperature is; with no humidity it really doesn't matter. High temps such as in the 90s mean very little when the humidity is 20% or so. Colorado can also have some pretty low temperatures. But once again, with almost zero humidity in the winter, it doesn't feel very cold. In the beginning I had lots of different jobs and hobbies too, most of which were designed to keep me as absolutely hot in Florida as humanly possible. You know, jobs like picking roses on a rose farm, flowers on a flower farm, working outside pumping gas in my Grandfathers' Texaco station (and about 10 other gas stations when I was younger), surveying land/nuclear plants/swamps/etc., car mechanic, building houses, working for a printing company, selling wigs door-to-door, selling used cars, you know, the usual stuff. You name it, I probably did it. You see, Stuart Florida is a sleepy little town north of Palm Beach about 50 miles, and the only thing it had to offer when I was a kid was tourism, fishing, and flower farms. There really wasn't much of an industry there other than flower farms and citrus stuff, but the flower farms are pretty much gone now due to everyone moving to Stuart once they discovered how pretty it was and the proximity to two salt water rivers, Lake Okeechobee, and the Atlantic Ocean. They still grow some flowers there, but not like they used to. The land was worth more for housing so the flower farm folks sold it to builders and that pretty much ended the flower farming. Fishing was also important and still the popular sport today. The main town where fishing occurred is part of Martin County (Stuart is the county seat) and very close to where I lived. The name of the town is Salerno. Due to the fishing, boating, and beaches (basically water stuff), Stuart ended up attracting what we called "Yankees" - people from up north. "Yankee" is a very popular word in my family. I don't believe I've ever gotten off a plane when going to Florida that I didn't hear a relative say the word "Yankee" before we got out of the airport. You'd have to live there to understand this, but heck even the Yankees call each other Yankees. In any case, Stuart is now a booming town with lots of Yankees and believe it or not - it has some of the people I grew up with still living there. Many of the other more Southern people (as well as my own family) have moved to the Carolinas and Georgia to escape the Yankees. Note: click any picture to enlarge
I have a lot of info to fill in, but I'll jump up to my second marriage that occurred in 1980 to Chris. The picture above is of us on our Wedding day in 1980. You'll find other pictures on this website with Chris and me but since this section is about background/early year stuff, thought I'd include it so you could see what we looked like when we were younger. Most people see the picture and say what the heck is she doing with an old man like you? All I can say is that when I met Chris I was around 30 going on 20, and she was about 22 years old. I was really pretty wild acting and she wasn't, so that had a rather calming effect on me. I think the good news for me was that she brought stability to the table for me, and for her, I brought spontaneity and risk taking plus a crazy, Southern, sense of humor.
Here's a picture of me in 1980 just before
Chris and I were to be married.
This is Chris with her Mom just before we
got married.
And here is Chris with her Dad just before
we got married.
Here is a picture of Chris and me from late
in 1980 up near Wondervu, Colorado.
This is a picture of Chris (wind blown
hair) from 1981.
This is a picture of me at sundown in
Jensen Beach, Florida in 1982.
Here's a picture of Chris and me from 1986.
Here's another picture of us from 1999
while at the Vista point on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge in San
Francisco.
This is a
more recent picture I took
of Chris.
Here we are about 24 years later
in 2004 and it still felt the same way.
Kind of like a cat and a dog living together. Really very different people, but it's
good and seems to work. Chris has a B.S. Electrical
Engineering degree from University of
I find myself off and on thinking about writing a book named "Crazy At The Top" where the "process of writing" is still going on after about 8 years. The book is about idiots in management and how they really screw up perfectly good companies and ruin morale for the employees as well as affect customers and shareholder value. Seems like the crazies keep showing up no matter where people go to work and no matter the kind of job. The book is more of an expose' on how the crazies do their tricks as well as some humor I include regarding really stupid management stories. Kind of my way of paying back these idiots after having to put up with them for so many years. I don't identify names (because I'm not interested in a lawsuit), and the book will include observations by many folks from different parts of the general work force, so it isn't just my opinion. There really isn't any shortage of info to put in the book since management in general has gotten really lousy since the 1980s. The short-term quarterly results focus of companies has forced a state of desperation that attracts crazies like flies to .... well, you know. Hopefully this book will make a top seller. Not about the money, just exposing these fools is plenty enough. I'm also planning to get my ridiculous crap at work blog up one day but need to find the time.
I was thinking about listing some of the jobs I have had, but I don't remember all of them. Take a look at the list below and you will see that although there may be more that I haven't listed, there is still quite a few to read about. I was always in to something or another, so the different jobs were kind of a way of life. I've included a rather large list below, but about the time I think I'm done, I remember another one. I didn't necessarily do the jobs for very long, and it wasn't an indicator of whether I was a stable worker or not, just that the jobs didn't pay well, would become boring, I didn't have an advanced education in the early years, depended on where I was living at the time, or it was time to move on. Most of them were rather menial jobs that didn't amount to much, but required me to be creative given how boring they were. I spent most of my time observing how crazy people can behave and coupled with my practical-joke humor, I had fun with it. Obviously I worked at more than one job per day back in the early years since no single job paid enough to live on. When this page was viewable by the public until the late 90s (and I was still adding jobs as I thought of them), I would get email from folks that would stumble upon my website now and then asking me how I could have had so many jobs. I will answer that by saying that you would have to know me to understand the answer to that question. You also have to remember that I have been working most of my life even back to when I was a little kid working at my Grandfather's gas station. I have friends like Tombo that have had far more interesting jobs than me (like when he decided to be a dog groomer, went to school to learn, and then had a poodle bite him - that made him give up on that career right on the spot). Haven't been doing that much moving around job-wise since the 80s, but prior to that it was something else. Especially when I was in my teens and early twenties, and especially after I hurt my back in 1972. The jobs listed below aren't in any particular order, just a stream of consciousness kind of thing. Following the job listing I've added just a few of my hobbies, most of which turn in to an obsession - usually a rather expensive one.
JobsGas Station worker - worked at my Grandfather's gas station dating back to being a little kid (pre-gradeschool). I would never let my kids do this kind of a job at such a young age since times are different now, but for me it was really fun being around my Grandparents since I could check the air in the tires, pump gas somewhat, stand on an orange crate and wash windshields, and go fishing with my Grandmother around lunch time at the local city dock. Besides working at my Grandfather's Texaco gas stations, I worked at a Sunoco, Shell, Esso, Cities Service (now Citgo), Gulf, Amoco, Standard Oil, and a Kayo gas station. I worked at these stations over a period of years sometimes working at two different gas stations in the same day/evening. The cool thing about working as a youngster was seeing all of the cars from the late 40s, the 50s, and in to the early 60s. We even had a gas pump where you had to hand crank it and it didn't have a meter. Five cranks in one direction, then five cranks back and it was two gallons. Back then people bought gas more by the gallon than by the price. So a person would say "give me 5 gallons of Ethyl (or high test). We had electric pumps too, but we still had the mechanical ones as well. There were no spray bottles back then either. The bottle for washing windows was a squeeze bottle or just a sponge and a bucket while using thick blue paper towels. The radiators didn't use antifreeze back then either. Just plain old water, and in Florida, that meant you had to be very careful when removing the radiator cap to check the water level. We always checked the air pressure in the tires, the oil level, the water level, the battery level, the fan belt, and washed the windshield. This was common at most every gas station I worked until the 70s came along and self-service stations started popping up. Flower/Rose Farm Worker - did this before I even had a driver's license. Hot, hard work that was not fun at all and paid as little as 35 cents an hour. I think the most I ever made was $1.40 per hour. Worked at about five different flower farms and the largest rose farm on the East coast of the U.S. Photographer's Apprentice - worked on big Kodak still cameras that were on a track and used arc lights. The job was fun while learning how to shoot pictures on this giant camera and enjoyed the work. Also worked at what is known as a "stripper." This is a person that cuts out negatives and mounts them in masks for magazine articles, posters, calendars, cardboard boxes, and just about anything else you would find at a printing company. This was strictly a night job for me. The biggest thrill was developing microfilm for missiles during the mid 60s. Worked as a surveyor and also as a gas station attendant during the daytime, and did the printing press photography work at night on a four hour shift. The company (Southeastern Printing) was a huge company with lots of Miehle 36 inch presses, Kind of felt like a mushroom after working in the dark developing film for hours on end. It was still interesting though and led to me developing my own black and white pictures up until the mid-70s using my own "darkroom" setup. Surveyor - I surveyed every lot on Jupiter Island, Florida and most of Martin County, Florida. Laid out a lot of roads and housing lots at Pt. St. Lucie, Florida too. I was also a Rodman, Instrument Man, and Crew Chief on the Hutchinson Island Nuclear Plant in Ft. Pierce, Florida. Being a surveyor was actually a very fun time of my life since it brought me in contact with obscure places that most people never got to see. The worst part - "cutting line" through a mangrove swamp on the Hutchinson Island Nuclear Plant for about 2 years with all the mosquitoes, scorpions, alligators and snakes around me. I've had to go in to a pond where I saw Cotton Mouth Moccasins enter the water just before I had to go in when I was doing field surveying. I was also chased by an alligator once that had babies around. Also stepped on rattlesnakes a couple of times scaring the hell out of me. Got bitten by a rattlesnake and a moccasin (not on the same day) during my stint at one company doing field surveying. Moccasin's really hurt when they bite. Really enjoyed the practical jokes with snakes and spiders. Also tied an anchor to a guy's leg once and dared him to throw the anchor 100 feet. He tried and it snatched him off the bow of the boat. We actually had to drive the boat around off shore until he cooled down. Also sank a couple of boats with folks in them while doing river bottom soundings as parts of "gags" that didn't pan out. Windmill Repairman - here's another odd one. Signed up for a day labor job when I was 16 in Augusta, Georgia and got a job to repair a windmill. The guy that owned the business (strange business, isn't it?) asked me if I was interested in fixing a few more, so I said sure. He hired me as a "Windmill Mechanic" (he was known as a "Windmill Boss") and I went on several jobs with him to learn about these beauties before fixing three more on my own. Mostly it was to grease the open gears on Aermotor Windmills, fix "sucker rods," and replace loose or missing vanes. He didn't pay me for the last job I did so I quit the job never to do it again. Said he was "running a little short on money." Yeah, well so was I except I was tired from doing work that I didn't get paid to do. Mechanic - lots of mechanic work off and on. I can rebuild anything. Worked as a factory trained Volkswagen/Porsche mechanic, pulled engines as a job, and just about anything else a mechanic would do. Have scars on my hands and some broken bones due to "slippage" when pulling engines or having someone "bump the starter" when putting in piston/rod assemblies. I had perpetually dirty hands and fingernails while doing this job (hey, at least I didn't bite my nails). Bridge Tender - I worked at the St. Lucie River bridge as a bridge tender where I'd raise and lower the bridge while working on the night shift. Boats (typically sailboats) would blast an air horn to indicate they wanted the bridge to open so they could pass through and head out to the ocean once past the bridge. I was doing the work on the night shift but it was incredibly boring since not that many boats would leave at night to go out to the ocean. I left the job when someone complained that they had to blast their horn a bunch of times to get me to open the bridge. They thought I was asleep, but I was having problems getting the gates to work since the bridge wouldn't open if a gate was up. Considering how boring the job was, and it was probably some whiny Yankee that complained, I decided I didn't need to do that work anymore. Shoeshine Boy - When working at my Grandfather's gas station as a kid, and remember this is in the 50s and in the south, there was an elderly black man that would shine folks shoes if they wanted it done while they waited for a tire to be repaired, or some mechanical work done on their car. He eventually quit doing it for some reason, but he left his shoeshine box, brushes, waxes, etc., in the back of the gas station. My Grandfather suggested that I could try shining shoes for tips since some of the customers asked where the shoeshine man was. So I took over shining shoes for a short time since my Grandparents also needed me to attend to cars that drove up for gas (this was in the days of full service stations). Shining shoes was interfering with me doing my part so we stopped doing it. Auto Parts Salesman - worked the desk at a couple of local auto parts store in Stuart, Florida in the 60s. Always amazed me that when a person came in to buy a part for their car we almost always had it. Didn't seem like there was THAT much stock in the back but there was. The good part was that I got parts for next to nothing for building my souped-up Chevys. Bad part was doing inventory and unloading parts trucks when they came in with a shipment. Especially when there was a shipment of crankshafts and flywheels. Body Shop Repair - worked in a body shop repairing dents, painting cars, etc. Actually went to school at night to learn how to do it, and then went to work in a body shop. When my second girl Michelle was born, I had to go to the body shop where I was working to hurry up and get my 1965 GTO that I had just finished painting the night before. My first wife already delivered Michelle by the time I made it back to the house (a friend took her to the hospital). One of my least favorite paint jobs was a job I did on a classic car that I was told was Acrylic Lacquer and it turned out that it was an Enamel paint job. If you have ever painted Lacquer over Enamel you know what happens. Boy what a mess that turned in to. I quit the job rather than go back and strip the car and start from scratch. Don't think I got paid for that paint job and had to avoid paint supply stores in Ft. Pierce for fear of running in to the guy that owned the body shop. Pop Shoppe Sales - There used to be a company in Denver known as the Pop Shoppe that sold colored water billed as cola drinks. Think really cheap drinks that were mostly colored water with sugar and some "flavoring" added to it. Did this job for a few days on the side until I sold all that I had bought at a discount. Mostly in the neighborhood where I lived. Thought they would sell well since they were so cheap but I was wrong. Selling a case of those pops and a guy could have enemies in no time. Christmas Card Salesman - sold Christmas Cards around Christmas time door-to-door. I'd carry around a box or two of sample Christmas Cards and would go door-to-door trying to get folks to buy them. They were of good quality, and it wasn't all that uncommon to see teenagers selling something door-to-door back in the 60s, but it felt like a lot of work trying to get folks to buy Christmas Cards. Usually all I got was a strange look and a "good luck" suggestion as I left with a bunch of sparkle all over my hands. Night Crawler Worm Seller - I bought another person's night crawler worm business (the worms were used for fresh water fishing). Everything went fine (for a short while) until the overhead light fuse box blew one night and all the worms escaped out of their containers. Crab Trapper - tried this for a short while. Bought a guy's crab trap run for a hundred dollars and got to the point that I hated to get them due to all the hard work and really low prices for crabs. Florida Blue Crabs mostly. Seems like all I ever got was a back ache and constantly being pinched by those stupid crabs. Sugar Cane Cutter - did this job for a week too long (the job was only a week). A guy asked me if I would be interested in cutting sugar cane near Okeechobee Florida and I told him sure. They had already burned the cane fields and I showed up with a worthless machete and no gloves. A hard, dirty, sweaty job that yielded blisters and lots of encounters with snakes once I started whacking on the cane. I was the only white guy at the place and the only one that spoke English. I stayed long enough to get paid for the week and at a whopping 35 cents an hour, was glad it was over. At least I got paid in cash, or rather, pocket change, at that low pay scale. Auto Detailer - not the same as being a shag boy, but was focused on buffing out paint jobs and then waxing them. Probably did this for over a hundred used cars. Actually paid well but started getting on my wrists and thumbs. Roof Truss Builder - this job didn't last too long. Basically, I cut roof truss boards to length and then nailed them together. Learned a lot about roofing trusses and roof pitches and all but a very boring job with lots of splinters and hammer dings on my thumbs. Car Porter - took this job between jobs. I knew the local used car dealership owner and some retired folks I knew asked me if I was interested in making a few bucks transporting cars from one dealership to another. I said sure and rode in a van with them to the dealership where each of us was given some paperwork and a map showing where we needed to drop off the car. Some of the drives were to Miami which was 100 miles from where I lived. The dealership we took the cars to always needed someone to drive their cars back to where we came from so depending on how many cars there were, we each got another car or to share a ride with one of the drivers. I love driving so it was kind of fun work but only lasted a couple of weeks. Golf Ball Retriever - this was a summer job that I did for a few short periods of times. My job was to go out on a tractor that could sweep up golf balls from the driving range so that they could be cleaned and reused for golfers trying to practice their driving skills. Balls were placed in 2 gallon metal buckets and a golfer would buy the bucket-o-balls for a cheap price. Then they would go out to the driving range and wack away while constantly offerig excuses to anyone foolish enough to achieve eye contact with the golfer. The machinery I used was similar to a a completely enclosed riding lawn mower but had a wire mesh cage around it so that I as the driver could not be struck by a golfer while doing my work. When I showed up the game changed. The golfers would immediately try to hit my cage while laughing their heads off. It was kind of funny and I always enjoyed it. Sometimes the folks could play with colored balls so they could see who hit the farthest or closest to an obstacle or some sort. From my side, I'd scoop their colored balls to different postions to make it look lie they really weren't all that good at all. The driving range error was close enough to the main trails such that I could sometimes sneak a colored driving range ball into the pocket which made the other players wonder where it came from. Pin Chaser - Bowling Alley work. Decided it would be fun to learn how bowling alley equipment worked so my next door neighbor in Ft. Pierce, Florida offered me a job and I took it as a pin chaser at night while working during the day on the Nuclear Plant. Learned how to repair the pin sweep and waxed lanes. Had a lot of fun fooling with folks by giving them "goofy" balls that wouldn't roll straight, knocking over pins so the underdog would win, etc. Actor - actor? Yep, worked as an actor for a company that produced movies for police departments. My job was to pretend to be a bad guy with con man skills that would try to run away when confronted about something illegal I was pretending to be doing, only to be chased down and "man-handled" by the police. It was actually quite fun, although it didn't last very long. Paper Boy - delivered the Miami Herald to folks in Stuart, Florida mostly at about 5:30AM. The "funniest" thing I did in this job was pilfer the chocolate milk from the local Circuit Court judge's milk box. People were always avoiding paying me for the newspapers. It wasn't all that much money but Yankees can be cheap (they were the only ones that ever avoided me - stupid Yankees!). Cotton Picker - boy was this a tough job. I worked on a cotton farm in Georgia where the pay was ridiculous. It was based on how much cotton I could pick and I was pretty crummy at it. I was the only white person picking cotton and I grew to enjoy the older black ladies singing what sounded like cotton slave farm songs. They were nice and spent most of their time watching me "work" while shaking their head and smiling. I probably picked about 1,000th of what they could pick in a day only to go back to the "camp" and just lay down on some ridiculously filthy cot wondering if I could make it through the end of the week making about 50 cents per day. Short Order Cook - this was hard work! Worked at a Royal Castle (similar to White Castle or Crystal Burgers) as a short order cook. Made hamburgers by the gazillions, made breakfast stuff for late night drunks and cops. You don't want to know what was done with a customer's food when the customer ticked someone off. USO Club Janitor - yep, actually worked at an old USO Club. It was also known as the Stuart Civic Center. Mostly swept up and got tables prepared for parties. Not really very interesting, but it was close to the park where I could go out and swing on some really big swings they had overlooking the St. Lucie River. You're never too old to swing on a swing set in my opinion. Orange Grove Worker - picking oranges and grapefruits mostly followed by packing them. Hard, hot, work with plenty of rattlesnakes in the 'groves. Hated this job due to the heat and crummy pay. My hands were orange colored all the time due to the dye they used to make oranges look really orange. Carnie - did this for a real short time (as in a week or two) when I was a teenager. I ran the milk bottle knock-over game and a dime-tossing game that you see at carnivals. You can win at the milk bottle game but it depends on whether the heavy bottle (one of the three bottles is heavier than the others) is placed at the top or the bottom and you have to know how to hit the "bottles" to make them all fall down. Most people lost. The dime-tossing game was really tough unless you knew how to toss dimes in the right arc so they would land on something of value. They used car wax on the center of the plates so that the dimes would easily slide off the plates. I also wore a "werewolf" costume as part of a sideshow freak gimmick where I scared the heck out of people. Fun job, but very hot wearing the costume while dragging a chain around in my locked-up "pen" and constantly making somewhat scary grunting sounds. Carpenter - Did a lot of this. Built custom homes (not by myself, but included others including my best friend Tombo). Had a business doing outside trim in Colorado in the mid-70s as well as putting on shake shingle roofs, hanging doors, sliding glass doors, and framing. Worked in pre-cast joist construction building floors for condos. This is where I suffered my back injury that pretty much ended all of my physical labor-intensive skills like carpentry and mechanics (1972). Tried a comeback in 1973 and then again in 1974/75, but it just caused too much pain. Would actually have my friend Tombo and others stand me up after sitting down for lunch since I couldn't get up on my own due to back and sciatic hip pain. Ended up getting a good settlement from the insurance company but only after I lost pretty much everything I owned. Was also known as a major practical joker. The craziest thing I did was put a 6 foot rattlesnake in a 50 pound box of nails only later to ask a friend to get me some nails. You should have heard him yell when he jiggled the box and it started rattling. I know, this was dangerous, but when you ask a guy that is scared to death of snakes to get you some nails, well, you just can't beat that for entertainment with all that screaming and adrenalin rushes causing the guy to run around. Iron Worker Apprentice - did this for a very short while since my back was messed up. Some of the heaviest lifting I ever did in my life and the most boring too. All that rust and "heaviness." Test Boat Driver - worked in Stuart, Florida test-driving boats until my kidneys started giving me trouble (showed up as a low back ache) and they wanted to move me in to sanding the hulls of boats. Really didn't care for the sanding stuff. Lots of fun testing boats and boat motors, but didn't last too long. Was actually offered money to capsize a boat. Tried, but those darn Evinrude boats just wouldn't flip. Plumber Apprentice - tried this and found that they only wanted me to haul copper pipes around and do soldering which got old quick. Tire Mechanic - for some reason the company called us "tire mechanics," but I think tire "changer" was a better description. The normal stuff - pull a wheel off the car, remove the tire using a hand tool (back in the old days) or mallets and blades, clean the rim, throw away the valve stem and replace it, put the new tire on the rim, fill it up with air, put the tire in one of those old metal tanks and check for leaks, balance the tire, throw it back on the car/truck/bus. Doesn't sound like a whole lot of mechanical knowledge is needed to me. Just a filthy job that didn't pay squat. This is the kind of job that a person could master in less than a week. In the old days it could be quite dangerous too since split rims were used on trucks and those things could fly apart and kill a person if not careful. Roofer - my first job in Colorado in November of 1973 was putting on shake shingle roofs in Steamboat Springs in 20 degree weather with a foot of snow falling the first day on the job. Oh yeah, it was on the roof of a 5 story condo and the owner of the company dropped us off to work with the idea that we would sleep in the empty condos that still had plywood flooring. The only problem was there wasn't any heat in the condos. I lasted two weeks on that job and got paid 4 bucks an hour to do it. I learned something about taking a job like that - never take a job where the boss drops you off in a town that's 100 miles from where you live and you have no way to get back home in case you want to quit. Business Analysts Trainer - created a set of classes based on using Enterprise Architect while using Camtasia as the medium to show how the tool would be used and when it would be used to the best advantage of the business. The idea was to introduce a knew way of capturing requirements while also introducing he the notion of "mind maps." Assembly Line Worker - a friend was looking for someone to work nights at his workplace on an assembly line for smoke detectors. I volunteered since I had never done that before and found out the job consisted of a long conveyor belt that constantly fed circuit boards that came by at a slow pace. My job? Stuff a single resistor into a circuit board. That was it! Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway), I did this job for one week and told my buddy never again. It takes a special person to be able to do that kind of mindless work. Magician - learned and practiced close-up card magic and some coin magic for many years. When I joined the Rocky Mountain Magician's Society they needed someone to assist in a gig that required me to visit dinner tables for a large get-together and do close-up magic for the people at a table. I took the job for one night only since it's actually a lot of work. The more people drink, they more they try to challenge you and brag that they know how the trick is done. They didn't of course, but when drunk enough they seem to think they do. Plus some folks just want to know how the tricks are done. Can't stand not knowing. I got 20 bucks for my entertainment so I would say it was a job. Author - wrote a couple of creative writing stories and a couple were published in the old Omni magazine back in the 70s. Also authored technical documents used in the telecom world for international requirements for the subject area known as Service Management for Advanced Intelligent Networks. Created my Master's Thesis based on this work for my M.S. in Telecommunications at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Systems Engineer and Solutions Architect Instructor - a former co-worker invited me to attend his graduate course at Denver Univeristy to provide a lecture on what the real world looks like when it comes to Systems Engineering and Solutions Architecture work. Had a good time giving the presentation and was invited back to instruct a class of this nature on a more formal basis. I declined due to the amount of work I already had during the day. Security Guard - hasn't everyone done this at one time or another? Verrryyy boring night work. Only bandit I ever saw was a Raccoon. Flag Man - talk about boring, this job was boring like you wouldn't believe. Had to stand in the hot Florida sun getting sunburned while watching complete nutjobs not understanding why a guy wearing an orange vest was waving a flag at them indicating which way they should go during road construction. My first thought when seeing the dazed deer-in-the-headlights look on a face was "please don't make me walk all the way up there to tell you to stay to your right. It ain't that hard folks! Plus - looky here, I'm holding a large red flag pointing to where to go." I really feel sorry for the police when they have to control an intersection. Human Factors Engineer - designed user interfaces on a contract job where I wire-framed the views using a variety of tools including Fireworks and laid out the page transitions. Short gig, but it was fun. Woodworker - refinished antiques, and painted furniture. This is now a hobby that I do when I can. My wife keeps me busy since she seems to think nothing of putting plants on 1800s antiques without putting a plate to catch the water underneath. This means I have at least 5 or 6 tables, sideboards, nightstands, desks, etc. to refinish. Shag Boy - took this job at a dealership here in Denver (where I went on later to sell cars) doing shagging duties such as changing the oil, cleaning out used cars, changing tires or batteries, detailing the cars, washing and waxing, some easy repairs, recovering seats, etc. Bicycle Repair - worked as a bicycle repairman in a small shop in the 60s where I'd repair flat tires, replace chains, grease and adjust wheel bearings, replace seats, paint the frame, etc. I was supposed to get a bicycle at a huge discount as part of the "compensation package" but all I got was promises and paychecks that were always late. I never did get the last two weeks of pay. I'd keep going by the store to see if my check was there (it wasn't) and eventually I got tired of hearing the same old story every time. You'd think the guy would at least use a different story than "I forgot my checkbook." Seed Salesman - sold "seeds" door to door and only did the job for a few weeks because there wasn't a huge demand for buying seeds from a door-to-door salesman. All kinds of seeds such as flower seeds, vegetable seeds, and even bird seeds. Colorful seed packets just didn't seem to cut it when attempting to sell them. That, and who the heck buys seeds from a door-to-door salesman? Order Puller - worked at a place named "More Valu Stamps" in Denver, Colorado where I pulled orders for shipping out to the various store locations. You probably remember the types of stamp places if you're old enough. Places like S&H and True Value stamps were similar to More Valu Stamps but those stamp companies were mostly back East. I was in the main warehouse and pulled orders all day for the remote stores throughout Colorado, Nebraska, and New Mexico. Kind of boring work and it only paid $3.25 per hour in 1974. Imagine supporting a wife and two kids on that kind of money. Imagine leaving Florida where I was making $8.75 per hour as a journeyman carpenter in late 1973 and finding myself doing that sorry job just a few months later. Wow. Martial Arts Instructor - this was interesting. Actually was teaching people Indonesian Kung Fu (Silat) for a number of years. Taught police self defense that was more realistic than the crap they were being shown which could've gotten them seriously hurt. Ended up training people for free so that I could dump them when they were getting sloppy and not being serious and all. I rose in rank to the equivalent of a 7th degree black belt (although we wear red sashes rather than black belts). Last did this in the early 80s where I had to finally "retire" due to it just leaving me hurting too bad. My friend Roger Bodette and Joe Trujillo were the last of my students. They got as high as black belts. Roger was the real trooper working very hard and sticking to it. Really admired his determination. Sorry Roger for all the pain you suffered. Circuit Board Designer - worked as a draftsman laying out multi-plane circuit boards. Actually went to school and got a degree as an engineering draftsman. Quite proud of all the drafting skills I picked up. Could do exploded view drawings of complex transfer cases as well as architectural drawings. Glad I didn't stick with it since nowadays you can buy Visio and do what we did except in a tenth of the time. Electronic Technician - did this quite a bit in a variety of jobs. Worked as an electronic tech on core memory computers, telephone analyzers, EEG machines, tape drives, and blood analyzers. Met my friend Clay while working at the core memory computer business back in 1977 and again when working part time at night in 1984 while going to school at the University of Colorado for an EE degree. Day Labor Work - decided to pick up some extra money once and thought I'd give a day labor job a shot. Boy that was a mistake! I have a bad back and of course the job they took a group of us to was for moving steel plates around all day and picking up machine metal cuttings. I was sore for a week after doing the job just one day. I swore I'd never do that kind of work again. Acupuncturist - Acupuncturist? Yep, Acupuncturist. Actually have a degree in it. Went to class with regular doctors to learn acupuncture back in the mid-70s when the U.S. was first introduced to it as a result of Nixon and the Chinese government finally talking to each other. I took an acupuncture machine apart that is used for Ryodoraku therapy to see what was inside, saw there wasn't much in the way of electronic parts, looked at the high price, and decided electronics was for me. It was those electronic machines that led me to pursue electronics and Electrical Engineering which shaped my whole future. Device Control Specialist - an odd name for what I was doing, but it was mostly related to building control panels for places like cement plants and manufacturing companies. I also assembled and tested cattle prods. I was dumb enough to test it once on myself by touching it to my leg. That was a very stupid (and shocking) thing to do. EEG Machine Engineer - got a job working on EEG machines and even designed a couple of EEG/EMG machines for biofeedback training. I found this to be a very interesting area and I'm still interested in the concept since it allows you to "hear" your mind at work (via audio feedback of the various brain frequencies). In my case I usually heard a flat line sound since I'm not so bright. Brainwave Analysis Instructor - did this as a job once for 3 days back in the mid-70s. I had attended several instructor level courses offered by Silva Mind Control and coupled with some research being done in Colorado, created a 3 day presentation for people to learn biofeedback training. Could have done it more than I did but found that the training attracted some pretty wacky people when the course was more about the tools to do the training than stroking crystals or burning incense. Electrical Engineering Instructor - worked at the University of Colorado in the Electrical Engineering department as a teacher where I taught several electronic labs courses, and a 6800 assembler lab/class. Dishwasher - took a job as a dishwasher on the night crew at Frances Langford's Outrigger Inn located in Jensen Beach, Florida for a while. Minimum paying job, but I did get to meet Frances Langford and her rather "interesting" husband - Ralph Evinrude of Evinrude marine motors fame. Also got to take a river trip on the Chanticleer which was their yacht near the restaurant. Impressive yacht with an interesting owner (Evinrude). One thing funny about the guy was that he decided to take a leak off the bow of the yacht in plain sight of anyone driving by or at the restaurant. He cussed like a sailor and didn't care what anyone else thought which was odd considering the famous actress he married that had lots of class. Pinball Restorer - started in the early 1990s buying Pinball games and fell in love with the process of restoring old games that are on their last legs (so to speak). I completey tear down the game to its most simple form, clean, replace, restore, paint, clear-coat, polish the metal, repair the electronics, rebuild cabinets and backboxes, touch up backglasses, etc., so that the game plays as it did when it was built. Then I either keep the game or I trade it for another game of interest, or I sell the game most likely to another collector. I've probably traded or sold about 150 games over the years. I currently own about 80 games of multiple eras. Satellite Systems Engineer - worked as an Electrical Engineer designing head-end equipment, satellite receivers, and dish positioners. Also got in to software development for embedded systems on satellite systems (mid to late 80s, 1990 and 1991). My friends Ben and Mike worked in this area with me. Still see these guys now and then. EEs are really a special breed. Embedded systems guys are like the construction workers of engineering. They swear like construction guys too. Really good at practical jokes as well. Sr. Manager Software Development - ran all software development for IT at Time Warner Communications as well as production support for all the miscellaneous applications we used. This is where I met some of the brightest people that were really the sharpest group of non-EEs I ever worked with. Still see some of the people and even work with a cast of characters that left TWC, moved on to other companies, and we resurfaced again to work together where I was a Director in IT software development. System Tester - did this while working at Western Electric/Bell Labs. Tested the Dimension 2000 PBX. This is the job I had when I met my wife Chris. Bell Labs had very good processes for testing and even valued system testers (unlike most companies nowadays where the code is just tossed over the wall to the testers and they are told they have a quarter of the time to do the work). Junkyard "Technician" - basically stripped parts off cars and trucks in a junkyard and sold them to the public. My favorite tool for removing parts was an acetylene torch. Drag Racer - had a very souped-up Volkswagen (don't laugh) dragster that I enjoyed drag racing over at Bandimere. I broke down and spent the money for a nitrous injection system and ran in the high 8.30s to low 8.40s at 148 mph. Scary fast for such a small, not-so-stock, car. Sold that car which was really a modified VW pan with a fiberglass body on it, an engine with a roller crank in it and tough-ass transaxle, plus the nitrous system to another guy that just had to have a VW dragster. I maybe got my money back out of the car when I sold it to the guy but he damned near killed himself at a Randy's Bugin on his very first run. He was kind of showing off and slammed into the wall doing about 60 mph right after the start line. Almost killed his dumb ass. At least his check cleared before the wreck (sold it two weeks before). I also raced a pro-modified stock car for a former boss where I was doing body work when he was injured during a stock car race where he broke his leg, as well as figure eight racing back around 1971 at Gene Johnson's auto body shop. The figure eight racing I did (only a few times really) was scary as hell and a guy named Red Begtrup had it out for me since he thought I was a "punk kid." Railroad Worker - worked for Florida East Coast railroad in the 60s where my job was to remove railroad ties and tracks and install new ones. This was a very hot job that involved shovels, large pry bars, sledge hammers, and railroad spikes. It was a temporary job and I couldn't wait to leave, mostly due to the heat and splinters from handling creosote covered railroad ties. Systems Engineer - did this for about 5 years. Wrote requirements for a variety of telecom systems including an AIN Service Management System, all kinds of other projects including reengineering projects. Wrote my thesis for my University of Colorado Telecom Master's degree on Service Management Components For Advanced Intelligent Networks. Antenna Engineer - designed/built/sold antennas that would intercept off-air signals for premium content stations back in the early 80s. They were made from a coffee can, high frequency transistors, aluminum rod with aluminum discs, and a low voltage source for a voltage controlled oscillator. Once some laws became a little more clear about intercepting off-air signals, I stopped doing it since it was basically illegal to build and sell them. Painter - painted houses and airplane hangars in the 70s while trying to recover from my back injury. Didn't hurt my back to speak of but sure did ruin some clothes. Switch Systems Engineer/Developer - wrote real-time call processing software while at Bell Labs and Siemens Public Switching. The Bell Labs in Colorado made PBXs and Siemens made a Class 5 central office switch (the kind that handles your local phone calls). Sr. Director of IT - was a Sr. Director of IT in a software development shop, and did it once before in the Satellite Systems area. The main part of this job entailed filtering the stuff from above and below such that both sides don't see the craziness the other side generates. Would be stressful, but I'm kind of used to it. Often threaten to start a page on bonehead things I've caught both sides doing. I had as many as 140 software developers, sofware architects, DBAs, testers, System Engineers, Project Managers for up to 40 concurrent projects. Lots of fun, lots of good people to work with. Director Of Engineering - decided to go to a start-up in 2001 (a 6 month deal) that was supposed to make me rich enough to retire. Then the bottom fell out of the telecom market and we all got laid off. We were designing a DWDM/GigE/SONET box and our job was to build the Element Management System (EMS) for the box. Even though it was for six months, we still learned quite a bit about being a start-up. Best thing that happened to me (besides working with old friends) was that I had to sell my stock options from the previous company before they plummeted to nothing. System Architect - did this job a couple of times since I like the area. Worked at MCI as an architect for an Enhanced Voice Systems project, at U S WEST Advanced Technologies, and at Qwest Communications (worked as a Systems Architect in addition to a Sr. Director of IT software development). Also did it while working in the satellite industry during the 80s. Wig Salesman - now this is a weird one. Took a job selling coupons door-to-door which included selling wigs. The wigs were really crummy. They were made out of Nylon instead of human hair, but I still sold them. Talking about a hard-sell job, this had to be it! Pinball Repairman - I repair Pinball games as well as restore them and charge a decent rate when I do it. Lecturer - lectured on a variety of subjects to large technical audiences that attended conferences throughout the country on subjects such as flow-through provisioning, inventory control, telecom service management, network and element management, performance management for SONET, GPS/GIS, effective work force dispatch using new techniques that involved GPS/GIS/inventory systems, revenue assurance, requirements analysis, and creating effective software development teams. CEO - Chief Executive Officer of a start-up company involved with online reservations that began in late 2003. I have a couple of partners that do the front and back-end software development and I define the requirements, business case, web design - although the key partner is the real talent here, usability requirements at least until the "UI guy" says no, system test, and anything else I can do to help out. The ideas were originally mine for the online reservation businesses based on self-service capabilities and we are developing the application using Grails/Groovy with MySQL as the database until we get large enough and we have to move to something like Oracle. I'm lucky to have the partners I do and special thanks to a key person (the original brains behind the app's design) and another key figure (the UI guy extraordinaire as well as many other areas where he assists). We look forward to bringing this application to the market and I couldn't have two better partners. Driver - worked as a tractor-trailer driver delivering flowers to all parts of the Northern United States to help out a friend. Also drove a tri-axle 10 speed dump truck hauling fill dirt and asphalt. Boy that job got old fast and didn't pay squat. Talk about boring, just shifted gears and avoided dumb drivers constantly. Really got good at driving backwards with a trailer (it's kind of hard to do it well). Puppeteer - back in the early 80s I was attending the University of Colorado in Denver. Near the campus was the 16th street mall in downtown Denver. I saw a guy making baloon animals as well as using a little hand puppet to entertain children. I thought this was neat so I found a business that sold puppets and bought a puppet shaped like a full size monkey. The monkey wore blue coveralls and had a red scarf wrapped around his neck. The monkey's legs would wrap around my waist and velcro would keep the legs together making it look like he was hanging on to my side. The monkey's hands had a metal rod connected to each hand with a rubber band that would slip around his wrists. I could stick my right hand up through the bottom of the monkey and up into his head where I could open and close his mouth and control his head movement and expressions and it had a little squeaker toy that I could squeeze so he'd make a squeaking sound. I wore dark sunglasses so that no one could see my eyes as I looked straight ahead, and I would sit on a bench on the mall and have "Mr. Monkey" watch people as they walked nearby. I'd have him point to people, make faces, squeak at them, make fun of the way they walked, tap me on the shoulder to let me know there was a good looking girl walking by, etc. It was a very funny routine and eventually it was so popular that I brought a shoe box with a rock in it so the box wouldn't blow away and people would dump change or dollar bills in the box. I donated the money I got to the Salvation Army or a battered woman's shelter since I got as much pleasure making the monkey act up as the people that got laughs out of how crazy the monkey would behave. Some people would come up and give the monkey a kiss on the head, or little kids would want to touch the monkey. One woman told me I should not be out in public with a monkey that behaved as he did. Yeah, right! Blame the monkey. Antique Auction Bidder - this is something I enjoyed doing for the local PBS station (Channel 12 - KBDI). Basically, I sat at a phone and answered incoming calls to buy antiques and acted as the buyer's representative. I explained stuff to the potential bidder about the antiques, told them if I thought it was a good buy or what it should go for, then told them how to "play the game." A good tactic for those of you that don't know is to let the bid go up a couple of times and then you up the bid closer to what you're wanting to pay (a jump of $100 wouldn't be uncommon). This usually flushes out the nickel and dime folks leaving you to do serious bidding with others like you. There is very fast action and required me to be on top of the game. I usually got "first chair" since I ended up getting the bid on quite a few things and got the PBS station quite a bit of money. Lots of fun. Requirements Analyst - wrote requirements for the aviation industry as they planned to migrate paper maps to a digital format so that pilots wouldn't find themselves digging out paper maps to plan their air routes. The project was kind of a mess so I ended up leaving at an opportune time to do more interesting work. Narrator - folks often say that I have a perfect voice for radio, although I say I have a face for radio. Anyway, some folks that wanted to make a video on playing, collecting, restoring, and selling Pinball games heard me speaking to some other pinheads and asked me if I would be willing to ask questions related to Pinball that they would record with some professional audio equipment. I said sure, and an hour later was finished with the recording session. No telling if the video will be made, but I was paid for the scripted narration. No video of me, just my voice-over narration for a bunch of questions and statements regarding Pinball. Web Developer - designed several business websites and currently designing the website for a startup company (not just me, but partners too). In case you are interested, unlike this site that was developed using FrontPage (which became Expression Web) and uses a table-based layout which is no longer in fashion, I use Dreamweaver and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) which is really the way to go. I'll be updating this site to HTML5 and CSS using Dreamweaver once I find the time (ugh). Either that or using Wordpress since I've developed a couple for other folks. Rock Tipping Expert - what kind of a "job" could this possibly be? Well, the way I did it felt like a real job. The payment part came in when someone said "I bet you can't turn that rock over all by yourself." So I'd grab some prybars and ropes along with a shovel and manage to get a really big rock to become unstable and then push it down the side of the mountain. Then we'd be betting on how far down the rock would slide, jump, and crash until it stopped. Completely re-contoured some of the mountain side doing silly stunts like that. Newspaper Article Publisher - recently assembled some crazy stories about growing up in the 60s where stoner friends did wild and crazy kinds of stuff and got them published in a newsletter.
And then there are the hobbies. Now this is an area that I'm sure I will forget at least some of the hobbies I have had over the years. Not all are on my current list of things I like to do since in some cases I've "been there, done that" and moved on. That, and my body aches too much after doing them.
Well that's about all the time I have for this. Neglecting the various hobbies and all.
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