Personal
After more than 30 years living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I moved to the Puget Sound region in October of 2005, and closed on a lovely 75-year-old money pit house in Kitsap County in April of 2006.
Computers and computing
My desktop computer is an Apple PowerMac G4. It's running OS X and I'm pleased with what Apple has done with Unix/NextStep. My laptop is a MacBook Pro. Not that I'm a Mac geek, or anything...
Jobs, Volunteering, and Career
I'm a computer geek. Working in System Adminstration and Technical Support is a fun and fairly easy life. I currently work for MorphoTrak, via a contract with Robert Half Government. MorphoTrak makes biometric matching hardware and software. My Business Unit handles contracts with the Federal Government.
Working for MorphoTrak has set me firmly on the track towards advanced training in Red Hat Enterprise Linux. I have my RHCE certificate (120-100-698), and I anticipate continuing with advanced training. I wouldn't mind training up to Certified Datacenter Specialist, or even Certified Architect. Becoming an RHCA would pretty much require me to get a job with a consulting organization, though. Most companies don't regular build new data centers from scratch very often. So, having an RHCA is overkill for anyone not specifically selling that knowledge.
My previous computer job was with Attachmate Corporation. They laid me off during the 2008 financial services crash. While there, I worked in external Technical Support on Verastream Host Integrator, a mainframe integration package.
Prior to that, I worked for Silicon Graphics, both as a contractor and as full-time exempt. After SGI laid me off in the dot com bust, I had enough saved up to enjoy myself for several years, which was nice.
I currently volunteer with South Kitsap Fire & Rescue as a firefighter, EMT, and engine company officer. That comfortably scratches the emergency services itch that forms the other big axis of my life.
Education
All of my primary and secondary schooling were in the San Jose Unified School District. My Elementary Schools were Leif Erikson and Merrit Trace. Trace was a gifted education magnet school, which mostly meant I had to make a longer bus trip every day through most of the sixth grade... My middle school was John Steinbeck and my high school was Henry T. Gunderson. All of these are in the City of San Jose. I received my diploma in June of 1988.
I went to college at the University of California, Davis, where I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics in June of 1993.
I have my Associates of Science in Fire Service Technology from Mission College. I completed the units required for a degree in Fire Protection Technolgy in June, 2001. The degree started showing on my transcript beginning in January, 2002.