The Next Wave

Sunday March 18, 2007

Five things

This one I've been procrastinating ... but I just got tagged for the second time, first by James, and now again by Steve (and no, I'm not going to do mine with video ... Steve obviously has waaay too much time on his hands ...). Time to get it over with I guess ...

1. My first computer job was working for a small retail shop when I was still in high school. My job was fairly simple: I would take an IBM Selectric typewriters and convert them into printers for computers (the process is somewhat described here, but as usual ... it was more complicated than that ...). In principal, it was a grand experiment (for this little company anyway) where people would bring in their Selectric and I would spend the entire day "grafting" solenoids into the machinery ...

2. When I was much, much younger I was in the U.S. Marine Corps (and I think I need to chat with the Commandant at some point ... simply because the web site uses Flash, not Java ...). For the majority of my time, I was in armor (meaning tanks). If you've ever met me, you have to wonder how I ever fit in one of these "wee" beasties ...

3. While in the Marines, I spent a year living in Okinawa, Japan. Has to be one of the best places I've ever lived in (I lived in the northern, most rural part of the island). It's essentially a Japanese version of Hawaii and I lived their with my wife and oldest son (who was born on the island) while we were there. While in Okinawa, I did a stint as (which is odd if you read Rich's blog) a lifeguard (technically Water Safety Instructor), teaching folks, including other lifeguards how to do everything from swim to survive for long periods in the water (which is a good thing for a surfer to know ...)

4. The most interesting place I've surfed so far is Costa Rica. Spent many an hour driving across miles of dusty roads looking for good surf (the term road is being generous). That being said, the most interesting and best parts of the trip was getting to surf by boat, places like Witch's Rock and Ollie's Point (the latter named by the locals for Oliver North .. evidently they knew he was using the location to ship weapons to the Contras before Congress did).

Hopefully, an equally memorable trip is forthcoming (thinking of a 2 week trip driving down the Baja peninsula to places like Scorpion Bay, Todos Santos and Cabo San Lucas either after JavaOne or in the early fall ... although Vinicius Senger of Globalcode in Brazil keeps threatening to take me surfing next time I show up there for a Sun Tech Day)

5. Lastly ... I hate this virus (because in many ways, that's what it is, although obviously it does have some interesting social consequences ... as with all viruses :-) ) called the "Five Things" ... so in my own way of trying to treat this malady, I'm not going to pick anyone else ... so in this thread, I hoping this will be the end of the line ...

Posted by brewin Mar 18 2007, 07:37:49 AM PDT Permalink