Well, here goes. This is my first blog entry. I feel so special. I hope to use this space to share some of the knowledge I've gained in 39 years in this crazy business.
A little about me. I was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida where I have lived most of my life. Interesting fact: my Mother and I were born at the same hospital! I am married to my best friend of 37 years, Mary Frances. I have two grown sons and two grandchildren.
My first IT job was as a tape hanger on the CDC 6400 mainframe in the math and weather (can't spell meteorology) department at Florida State University, GO NOLES! That was the fall, September maybe?, of 1968. I've touched in one way or another everything from unit record equipment to the latest Sun servers. We now pack more horsepower in one rack unit that we had in an entire data center when I started. Teraflops? Heck, we were happy with one flop! I've wired plug boards. (can't wait to see the comments on THAT) I've installed new systems and retired old ones.
My last application programming gig was COBOL on a Sperry-Univac 1100 Series system for the State Of Florida. I moved to OS1100 internals and became a "Systems Programmer" doing OS maintenance for three state datacenters.
I suppose that's enough for now. I'll try to turn some of this into something hopefully of value to the community.
