The Journey continues. . .

Well, I got a hold of the new PC, a printer and that copy of dBASE II, that fellow teacher of mine "Nick" (that I mentioned yesterday) brought it all to school, and we swapped it from his car to mine in the parking lot.

I already had a small ‘computer room’ set up at the house in a spare bedroom that was home to my Commodore 64, but, with the room I was going to need for the new equipment I set up some new space in what, up until this point had been a breezeway between the house and the garage.

As I recall I had everything set up, and ready for me to get down to work, over a couple of long weekend days.

I’d like to tell you I had some sort of innate, or intuitive sense for dBASE II. Or possibly that I was some sort of instant dBASE prodigy, it would have made this story a little more interesting I think. However, that was not the case, reality in fact, was quite the opposite.

I’d spent a couple of years, writing programs in BASIC, COBOL, Assembler and RPG, the one thing all of these languages had in common, was that if you wanted to open a data file, and ‘read’ the contents you had to tell the program what the file looked like, inside.

In COBOL for example, you have to do something similar to:

COBOL Sample

01 StudentDetail. 02 Student_Id PIC 9(7). 02 Student_Name. 03 First_Name PIC X(10). 03 Surname PIC X(15). 03 Middle_Initial PIC X. 02 Date_Of_Birth. 03 Birth_Day PIC 99. 03 Birth_Month PIC 99. 03 Year_Of_Birth PIC 9(4). 02 Course_ID PIC X(4).

I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but after two solid days of scouring the manual for a way to describe the file, I remember thinking, “Could it be this simple?”

It was, to open the “StudentDetail” dBASE table (data file) all it took in the language was:

USE StudentDetail

That was it, the file was open, and miraculously, to me, somehow the computer knew what each of the pieces of data in the file were; what they contained, and how to allow, or not allow, me to process that same data.

So folks, that’s where it all started, me sitting in my “breezeway turned computer center” drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes into the wee hours of the mornings as I struggled to understand enough about this new language, and all of it’s ‘high tech’ features to actually deliver, what I’d promised to deliver.

Something else worth mentioning here, is that I’m doing all of this learning on my new customer’s computer. The idea today, that any sort of programmer would ‘need’ your specific computer to program it for you is beyond funny. The odd thing is, back then, it was almost expected that all the programming would be completed, and installed, before things were delivered.

So, for the next three weeks or so I was a virtual hermit. I’d get home from teaching school and hit the project. I’d take a break when my wife got home from work, we’d have dinner, talk a little and then I’d utter the infamous words of virtually every computer nerd/geek I’ve ever known “I’ll be back in a second, I just want to try out this idea I have”.

The next thing I’d know, it would be 2:00 or 3:00am, my wife has been asleep for hours, I need to get up for work in a couple of hours and am desperately needing sleep.

That was my life, for about three weeks. At the end of that time, I had a working invoicing system, that did everything the client said it needed to do, and, that I hadn’t been able to ‘break’ in three nights of trying. I was ‘ready’, or as ready as I was ever going to be, to deliver my first ever customer project.

I went to bed, visions of a “big money” future dancing in my head. The next morning I called Beck’s from a coffee shop and set up to deliver the system the next day, a Friday. I don’t remember why now, but it was not a school day, so I was able to get in there fairly early in the morning around 10:00am I think.

When I arrived, computer, printer, monitor etc in tow, Glenda had cleared a space for everything, and I proceeded to set it all up. While I was doing that, she went on to tell me that Mr. Beck had told her NOT to do any invoicing manually, that since I was bringing the new computer system, why do everything twice… Nice, no pressure in that little statement.

Then again, for whatever reason, I don’t remember being at all concerned at the time, I was certain I had all the bases covered.

I didn’t.

The first hour that Glenda and I worked on entering the weeks invoices, I spent more time making changes, and ‘fixing’ problems than we spent actually entering anything. In the second hour things went a little better, the mix was about 50/50, and for the next two hours things continued to improve until in the fifth hour she entered invoicing information for a full 60 minutes and all I did was watch.

Eventually Glenda announced she was finished entering all the runs for the trucks for the week and we now needed to print the invoices.

I remember, as they were printing out, that Bill Beck walked in. He looked at the first few pages, and then asked Glenda what she thought. I know I was thinking that she was going to really complain about all the ‘extra’ work she’d had to do as I worked on the program in between entries… but, instead she said: “This is great, it only took us 5 hours!!”

Bill smiled, looked at me, shook my hand and said “You work with Glenda, get her what ever she tells you she needs, just keep your bill to me under $2K a month”.

He looked at Glenda and said: “Write him a check for every thing we owe him, including today”.

He thanked me one more time, and with that he was gone.

Glenda wrote me that check, for all of the equipment, 90 hours of my time at $20/hour, and handed me a folder with the details for what she wanted to do next.

I was driving back home 10 minutes later, in some sort of daze. I couldn’t believe what was happening; I had checks in my hand for nearly $6,000!! A little over $2,500 of which was MINE, after all the expenses had been paid!!

It may not sound like a lot now, but to a guy who was making $16K a year, this, was the “big time”. Not only that, but, from what he’d just told me, I’d be making somewhere in the vicinity of $24,000 with them in the next 12 months!!

When I got home I did two things, first, I called my PC connection (Nick) and ordered myself one of those PC’s exactly like the one I’d sold Beck’s, second I called our favorite local restaurant and made dinner reservations!

It never occurred to me that Beck’s would ever want someone else doing their computer work, I know now, in retrospect, that I was naive, that the odds of ‘losing’ a client are much higher than keeping one. At the time though, it just never even entered my mind.

I continued to do work for Beck’s for the next 11 or 12 years, in fact, if I was still there and Bill Beck hadn’t retired and closed up shop, I’m as certain as I can be, we’d still be doing business together.

Oh, one last thing... The computer in question was a "Corona", 64K of memory, 2 360K 'floppy' drives (back when floppy meant it actually 'flopped' when you waved it around), a 'high tech' 13" amber monitor and MS-DOS, I still remember we used to keep the programming on Drive "A" and ALL of the data on drive "B".

The next leg of the journey… Micro Applications begins to grow

Technorati Tags: Career Choices - Journey - Life - Software Development
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Career Path and the Journey. . .

I've mentioned several times that my path to software development was not exactly a direct line. I've talked about my days as an auto mechanic, painter and several other things I've done, but, since I started the story of what sparked my interest in computers, I thought I'd share a few of the highlights of the actual journey, beginning today with how it all really began....

-------------------------------

Shortly after I graduated from college, in 1981 (yes, I was a ‘late bloomer’ educationally), the first actual job I landed was teaching at a “for profit”, post-secondary educational institution.

Ok, that’s what they liked to call it, it was a school that specialized in degree programs that had practical applications and they made money at it. Associates Degree tracks in Accounting, Business Management and Computer programming where among their more popular offerings.

The first semester I taught, as I recall, mostly “Introductory Accounting” classes, and one class called, “Flowcharting and Logic”.

The accounting classes were in various rooms in the building, and in the morning were fine, but by afternoon, the AC could not, in any way keep up with the afternoon sun streaming in the windows, along with 30 or so folks in what once was a space for maybe four workers maximum. In short, it was often warm, very warm in those classrooms and far too warm for the required professorial suit and tie.

The “Flowcharting and Logic” class however, was held in one of the classrooms assigned to the ‘computer curriculum” and, as such, had upgraded and additional AC units for the room. It was always comfortable. It was one hot summer afternoon that I decided if I was going to continue to teach there, I needed to be teaching classes in rooms like this!

I struck up friendships with a couple of the other instructors, one Fred Snyder, was the head of the computer department, the other, John Pickens was the lead programming instructor. Over the occasional after work beer, or three, and during our breaks from teaching, they would often encourage me to talk to the Dean about picking up some classes in the computer curriculum for the next semester.

I did, Joel Beck was the Dean at the time, and he was the type to reward good performance. As he put it, the students seemed to like me, they were doing fairly well in my classes, and no one was banging his door down to complain… in short, I was a “wonderful” teacher... as no one was complaining to him, or his superiors.

We talked further about it, and he agreed to give me an additional “Flowcharting” class and an “Introductory COBOL” class along with enough accounting classes to make me a full time instructor for the following semester. I was, needless to say, elated. With each passing semester I picked up additional classes and eventually was teaching IBM 360/370 Assembler, RPGIII and Apple Basic in addition to the COBOL and Flowcharting classes.

I still taught some classes in the Accounting realm, but primarily in the Corporate Finance and Economics areas. I was getting the good schedules, the kids seemed to enjoy the classes and I was having a great time, but, not making much in the way of money.

Fred, John and I actually started a computer consulting company that we called “Applied MicroSystems” in late 1982 (or the Spring of 1983, I just remember it was ‘winter’ as we met and discussed it), initially we’d intended to develop business software systems and use Apple computers to bring solutions to small and medium sized businesses. We mostly spun our wheels writing proposals, but got pretty close a few times to landing a deal or two, and learned a thing or two along the way.

Also in 1983, the school opened a second campus, I was offered the lead computer/accounting instructor slot at the new campus, and took the job!. This strained our little 3 man shop as it wasn’t as easy to get together and talk out ideas, meet with clients and draw up proposals. Cell phones were hardly common and very expensive, and email, well it hadn’t really arrived yet. Instead we resorted to ‘meetings’, and while we were all trying, the company was just not really going anywhere fast.

Then, one day after class, a student of mine came asked if I would be willing to meet with a fellow in Fulton, NY who had a small, but growing, trucking company. One of her close friends worked there, and they’d been trying to get someone to help them for several months, but, hadn’t met anyone they felt comfortable with yet. She said “I told them that if you had time, I believed you charged $100 for an initial consultation”.

Folks, at that time I was earning, maybe, $16K/yr as a full time instructor. Do the math, that’s about $308/week, for at least 30 (and probably usually over 40) hours of effort! I would have talked to anyone, about anything, for $100 back then!!

I called the company, “William H. Beck, Inc.” and spoke first with Glenda the office person, and then with Bill himself, we arranged a meeting for later that same week.

This was the early days, or the ‘glory days’ as I like to remember them. I met with Bill and Glenda, they laid out everything they’d shown to anyone else, and, they also shared with me what everyone else had proposed. We parted with me promising to review it all, and get back to them the following week. These days, having a client show you everything a competitor has proposed is almost unheard of, and, if a client offered, it would be a prudent business move to politely decline.

This was also about the time “clones” started becoming available for the new IBM PC. Prior to this time, if you wanted a “PC” you bought it from IBM, or possibly Compaq. One of the new instructors at the new campus, just happened to be in the clone business, and was willing to cut me a deal as it looked like I might be a good ‘reseller’ for him, over the long haul. So, slight shift from the Apple II, III, Lisa platform, and instant acceptability in the business marketplace!!

As I looked over the proposals from the consultants who had gone before me, a few things struck me:

1. Folks were getting paid pretty well to do this sort of thing
2. Every single proposal was specifying a language called dBASE (which I’d never heard of)
3. Folks were getting paid very well to do this sort of thing
   

So, with the same brash manner I became a ‘computer’ instructor, I shaved a few dollars off the other guys computer prices, which left me pretty ‘thin’ on the hardware in terms of profit, and I cut their initial proposal in half for the custom programming. I figured for $2k I could learn the language and make a little money in the process

When I met with Bill the next time, to talk money, I explained two things to him:

• I wasn’t making much at all on the hardware, but, we had to buy it up front, and I’d deliver it when the program was written, and working.
• That my pricing for the programming was so much lower, not because I was charging significantly less per hour, but, because I was only contracting for a bare-bones invoicing application.

As we talked, what I told him was this (and I’ve promised the same thing to every customer since):

“If I don’t deliver, what I’m promising, in writing, to deliver, you won’t owe me anything”

With that, he and I agreed on the terms of the deal and I went home to write it up.

On the way home (about a 45 minute drive), I could hardly wait to call Fred, or John, and tell them the good news, I’d landed us our first deal!! As usual, as I pulled up to the house I stopped out front and got the mail from the box, interestingly enough, as I started to go through the mail on the way into the house, I saw this registered letter…

It seemed that John and Fred had decided they’d like to take off with the company, without me, and had, according to our bylaws, written me a letter, complete with a generous buy out agreement (essentially returning the money I’d invested initially).

I signed the agreement, and went down to the courthouse the following day and filed a DBA as “Micro Applications”. I was officially in business, as a computer consultant, complete with my very first customer!

That afternoon, I returned to “Beck’s” where Bill and I signed the contract I’d drafted, and he wrote me a check for the PC, and a copy of dBASE II. (Believe it or not, I actually still have that original signed deal dated 6 November 1983) We shook hands and I went home wondering what in the hell possessed me to sign a contract, to write a program, in a language I’d never even seen, let alone used.

My wife’s reaction, as I recall, was far more.. ummmmmm… you might say “realistic”… as in “You did WHAT!!!??? How are you ever going to do that? You know this is a legally binding thing right? Why would you do that? We’re going to get sued”

I’ll write about how it all turned out, in the next post.

Technorati Tags: Career Choices - Journey - Life - Software Development
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About yesterday’s post. . .

I received a couple of comments that made me think. While I’ve often thought of doing this before, I never have. I thought that maybe, we could open a ‘conversation’ around these two thoughts and see where, if anywhere, it goes.

I always look forward to reading the comments you all leave, it’s one of the biggest motivators for me, to continue writing here. If this dialog, is something you all enjoy, I’ll continue with it whenever asked, or the mood strikes me. Hell, I might just do it because it’s fun!!

Without further banter….

Flash said:
As I read your post, I just pictured you slaving away at a computer that would equal the size of a modern pick-up truck, ribbons and spools of magnetic tape whirring endlessly...I know it wasn't that long ago, but the way you described it, I couldn't help it.

Flash, that’s the way I envisioned it as well, except the actual 360/370 was probably more “tractor-trailer”, than pickup truck sized.

Although, I never actually saw the machine in question, it was housed about 100 miles away on the SUNY Binghamton campus. SUNY Utica/Rome, later the SUNY College of Technology, was too small at the time to warrant its own machine.

I’ve seen plenty since that time, one computer center in particular was nearly half the size of a football field! What’s amazing to me, despite having been involved and working with computers for that past 20 plus years, is that today, on our desktop, or in our laps, many of us have more computing power than those old behemoths had!

Greg said:
Hmmmm....as you know I cut my teeth on one of the first 360/40's in '67 and certainly it could do stuff a bit faster but here's my question: Is the quality of the answer as great as the 40 hour one you refer to?

In human terms of poetry, satisfaction and accomplishment?

Now as you think back on this post, it is the people that mattered afterall

Where is Doctor Dave???!!!!!

First, for those of you who don’t know “Dr. Dave” is what Greg and I have always called Dave Fulton, the original founder of Fox Software and the product that was to become “FoxPro”. Dave signed on with Microsoft as their chief database architect when the company was sold to (merged with actually) them, but then, about 18 months later simply ‘vanished’ from their ranks. It's been written that he left because Microsoft was a 'big company' and he was more of a 'small company' guy. I, for one, really believe that to be true.

We’ve wondered, many times over the years, what exactly happened to him. He was a great man, brilliant mind and fostered an atmosphere of invention at Fox Software. He encouraged innovation and we folks in the “streets” actually got to talk with the developers when we had problems.

I’ve sort of secretly hoped he’d retired to some tropical island, living out his days relaxing in the sun and enjoying the fruits of his efforts. The last thing I saw in the press about Dave is here, he’s in his early 60’s now and I suspect continuing to find things he feels passionately about to fill his time. If you’re interested in what some other developers had to say about Dave, you you can look here.

Now, on to the more esoteric question, the one that addressed the relative ‘quality/value’ of either solution.

In straight business results terms, they’re absolutely equal. The results are identical, repeatable and reliable. In terms of speed to market, the computer solution is definitely superior.

In human terms, believe it or not, I also believe they’re equal.

I know the sense of accomplishment I had when finished with the computer version was even higher than when I finished the manual solution. To complete the computer version I had to learn new things, new methods, apply them properly and monitor the results. It probably took me the better part of a second week to achieve that second solution. Once I had however, all I needed to do after that, was get the data ‘punched up’ and run it through. It made possible, what a week before was impossible.

I know, that the feeling of elation I had when I knew my (and that mainframe’s) efforts would allow us to complete the project not only on time, but early, was genuine.

Is a poem, “less good” because it was written using a keyboard and monitor, than if it was written longhand?

Is digital photography somehow inferior to the older film method?

The true genius, in any work, is in the inspiration, the vision of the person creating it. Not necessarily in the means, or the medium they use to bring it to life (with apologies to Marshal McCluhan). I think beauty, satisfaction, accomplishment are all terms to describe what we feel when we look at something that we, or someone else has created.

I know I don’t find those emotions diminished if the work was done in canvas and oil, or in pixels… In fact, at times I’ve looked at ‘digital art’ and thought of the thousands of hours that may have been devoted to producing it, one painstaking layer at a time, each of the several million pixels each requiring the artist to ‘adjust’ it until it suited him, or her.

Tying both of these comments back together, those old computers were huge, and make no mistake about it, there’s still plenty of “large iron” in place and running major corporations today. There are also millions of “Middle Iron” machines, filling gaps, handling tasks that are better handled in real-time processes, intercepting message queues and handing off jobs to the proper machine, at the proper time.

Behind, on top of, or underneath (depending on your point of view) of both of those tiers is the PC in all its many versions and flavors. That ubiquitous desktop appliance, one that graces nearly every business workspace in the country, more raw computing power is housed in these millions of boxes than in all the large and mid-tier iron combined.

The bigger question, in my mind anyway, is one of are we really any better off?

Is life, as we know it, truly better than the life folks lived 50, or 100 years ago, because of these devices? Have there been improvements, in our level of living, our life satisfaction level, our overall happiness as a result of the way the computer has infiltrated nearly every facet of our lives?

Some would say no, and emphatically say no. They’d argue that life has become too fast, that we no longer have the ability to take pride, to feel the sense of accomplishment we once did. That computers, and specifically robots, have taken that from us.

I disagree. You tell the research scientist who’s finally brought a new drug to market, that because the computers they used allowed them to speed the processing of huge amounts of data, that they should feel less satisfied.

Does a farmer feel less satisfied in a successful year because a computer monitored water and nutrient levels throughout his fields and calculated the exact amounts necessary for a maximum crop yield?

I think, humans (or at least this human) find satisfaction in a job done well, in taking existing skills, learning (or inventing) new skills, applying them to a particular problem and achieving the desired results. I believe this is a universal-ism, that anyone who’s had the good fortune to accomplish anything, especially if they’d been told it couldn’t be done, will find themselves driven to repeat the experience.

So what do you all think, have computers “pulled their weight”?? Brought us good that outweighs the potential bad? Are they essential to you, would you want to go back to a world without them?

Technorati Tags: Dave Fulton - FoxPro - Microsoft - Quality of Life
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While we’re talking about people. . . .

I have a lot of time to think these days. A fifty minute commute each way to the job and back leaves my mind pretty free to just roam. Sure I have to deal with traffic, but for the most part I just settle in to the flow and my mind starts to wander around.

Often it’s pondering the latest project, problem or issue at work, but this week, for whatever reason I’ve been thinking about what got me started down the path that got me to this exact point.

Maybe it was the initial phone interview this week with Microsoft, maybe it had to do with losing two days this week to the flu, and knowing that if I don’t crank it up this weekend I’ll put several other people in a bind come Monday, or maybe it’s that from time to time that I marvel, as did Jerry Garcia, that I get paid, for doing this.

For what ever reason, I found myself thinking about two fellows who were very influential in my finding, and developing my aptitude for software development.

These two guys are (were) probably as different as two people can be. One a PhD, in mathematics, who seemed to have a rule about absolutely everything, the other a career programmer who was a very ‘back to nature’ kind of guy, who’s favorite hobby was beekeeping.

Walt Wenger, was the beekeeper/programmer, and the instructor for my first ever course in programming. I think back on that now, and I know how absolutely lost I was in the first few weeks of that class. It was the first time in college that I’d been ‘lost’, every other class had been like a ‘review’ for me, not this one.

The class was Introductory COBOL, and as I sat in the first three or four class sessions it was like this guy was speaking a foreign language or something. I’m not talking about the actual COBOL language, but everything he said; algorithms, flowcharts, decision matrix, binary logic, and on and on. Every one of those terms, concepts and ideas was foreign, new, to me.

I seriously considered dropping the class as it was an elective, one I’d taken at the suggestion of my wife because she thought I’d “enjoy it”… well, I wasn’t enjoying it, and it had all the earmarks of requiring far more time than I was prepared to give it.

One night, as class was ending, and he’d just handed out our term programming project, I asked to speak with Walt after class. As I started to explain that I did not understand what he was asking us to do, that I had no idea even on how to get started, he cut me short and said: “I am not going to do your work for you, figure it out.”

As he started to walk away, I said (and I think I actually shouted) “I’m not asking you to do any of the work, just show/tell me how to get started!”

He stopped, turned back to me and said: “It’s not all that difficult, just lay out the steps, like you would for any other program you’ve written”

I responded with something to the effect that I’d never written any type of program before, that this was the first computer class I’d ever taken… I remember he looked at me for a moment, asked if maybe, just maybe, I should have taken one of the prerequisite classes… and then sort of looked up at me and said: “You’re going to have to be willing to work, and work hard, if I suspect for a minute that you’re trying to slide, you’ll be on your own, are we clear?”

I said yes.. and with that we were off… I was hard work, but he was there for me, he’d give me a little information I’d run with it until I hit a dead end, get a little more info and repeat the process…

I became increasingly intimate with the IBM 360, punch card machines, JCL and eventually some actual terminals and teletype machines… with each pass I got closer and closer to the goal.

Back in 1979-80 “structured programming” was a fairly new concept, the ‘PERFORM’ verb only a couple of years old in the COBOL language. Top down design concepts were also just beginning to emerge, and fortunately for me, Walt was a big proponent of both. So, while my classmates were using “GOTO” commands to move around within their code I was learning about ‘procedures’ and reusable code segments.

In the end, I was the first student finished, and one of only 5 or 6 that actually achieved an entirely correct result.

I remember thinking, as that semester ended that I was sorry college was over for me, that I felt more satisfaction in that particular “A”, than in any other I’d received. The only other course that I’d really felt that proud about, had been the semester before, and it was really my entry into the world of computers.

“Managerial Quantitive Methods” was the course, Dr. William Langdon was the professor. I remember that first day of class, almost like it was yesterday as two things of note occurred that day. The first was that an long time friend, Rich Denny, was in the classroom. I hadn’t seen Rich in several years, before we both got married we’d been inseparable. We’d enlisted, chased women, and essentially grown into men, together.

The second item of note was Dr. Langdon’s first lecture… it was more a directive than a lecture. He handed out a course outline, complete with assignments, readings etc… and made it very clear there would be, no excuses, no variance from the plan. That we’d have to earn an “A” with more than just attendance and completing the assignments, an “A” was for outstanding work, a “C” was for just getting the job done.

With that he’d laid down the gauntlet, I know I picked it up thinking “No way will I let this arrogant SOB get the best of me”. The other thing I remember about that first lecture was that his vocabulary caused me to head for a dictionary after class to find the meaning of ‘pedantic’ and a few other words I hadn’t heard before. Essentially he had commented on how some folks found him to be pedantic, but, that in reality he was simply detail oriented being a mathematician and all.

To say Dr. Langdon’s course was tough, would be understating the reality of it all. He was demanding, unforgiving and relentless in his pursuit of understanding and perfection in solution.

He remains, to this day, one of the single smartest folks I’ve ever had the pleasure of learning from. His grasp then, of complex mathematics, as well as his ability to inspire me to grasp the same concepts for myself, inspires me still. Long time readers may recall that I sought him out as I was attempting to work through the algorithms for the Percentage of Likeness (POL) utility. I did that because I knew, if there was a flaw in my logic, or application, he’d spot it, and point it out in no uncertain terms.

It was a project class with him that introduced me to a ‘computer’. We were building an econometric model where the parameters of the model were based on regression lines that would be generated from 40 years of government statistics on things like “Labor Supply” and “Labor Demand”. After I’d finished the first analysis and realized it had taken me nearly 40 man hours with pencil, paper and a calculator, that there was not enough time in the semester for me to finish in time.

I went to Dr. Langdon and presented him with my dilemma. His response was ‘Use the computer”. The only problem with that was that I had no idea, what he was talking about, or how to even begin to find out.

In less than an hour he had me an account, provided me access to SPSS and some generic functions and showed me how to work the “punch card” machine. I entered the data, from my first analysis on the punch cards, added the JCL and SPSS request cards and submitted the job “through the window” and waited anxiously for the results.

The next morning, yes, back then everything was submitted as a ‘batch’ and student results would get back first thing the next day, I was jumping up and down with joy to discover the ‘computer’ results agreed with my manual results. It meant two things, my initial work was right and, more importantly my ‘job’ was right as well.

My enthusiasm died down a bit, as there, on the last page of the printout, on the very last line of the page was the following:

PROCESSING CPU TIME: 35 CPU SECONDS

This computer had accomplished, in 35 seconds, exactly the same task that had taken me 40 hours. I know people talk about epiphanies… but I really had one at that exact moment, I finally understood why computers were becoming more, and more, common. What all the ‘buzz’ was about. It was that moment, and all the subsequent jobs I ran for those parameter estimates that began my curiosity regarding computers. That curiosity led me to be taking Walt’s class… The rest, as they say, is history…. There are a couple of other key moments along the way that solidified my ‘career’ in the computer industry but these two events really started it all.

So, to Walt, and ‘Doc’, where ever you are, whatever you’re doing, know this… you both, in your own ways inspired me to be better, to be as good as I could possibly be, and to believe in my ability to grasp, learn and master complex and difficult concepts. For that alone I will be forever grateful!!

For those of you who have not already gone and looked up “pedantic”… here’s the skinny:

SYLLABICATION:	pe·dan·tic
ADJECTIVE:	Characterized by a narrow, often ostentatious concern for book learning and formal rules: a pedantic attention to details.
SYNONYMS:	pedantic, academic, bookish, donnish, scholastic These adjectives mean marked by a narrow, often tiresome focus on or display of learning and especially its trivial aspects: a pedantic writing style; an academic insistence on precision; a bookish vocabulary; donnish refinement of speech; scholastic and excessively subtle reasoning.

I hadn’t thought much about the ‘beginnings’… for quite a while. One of the great things to me, about having this blog, is that when I do remember this sort of thing, I can write it down, share it, and ‘have it’ for myself later too!!

Technorati Tags: Life - People - Influence - Journey
-IceRocket Tags: Journey - Influence - People - Life

A tale from the road…

A few years ago, 1997 to be specific, a friend and I took the first of many ‘road trips’ we’d end up taking before he moved to Kansas City. This particular trip took us from North Carolina, through West Virginia, Pennsylvania into New York and then back through PA, Virginia and finally returning to North Carolina.

We had a wonderful time and met many interesting and varied folks along the way as well as encountered about every kind of weather you can, in June, on the East coast.

On this particular morning, we’d gotten up early and were hoping to make Winchester, Va. by nightfall so we could spend the next few days riding the Parkway through the Shenandoah Valley and into Roanoke before finally heading home.

It was raining fairly heavily and there was a fog clinging to the hill tops with occasional dips onto the road as we headed out. As you might imagine, the going was pretty slow, and with us both paying more attention to the road, traffic and riding conditions, we inevitably missed one of the turns we needed to make.

Once we realized we’d missed the turn, we also needed a break, and some fuel, so we pulled into the next gas station we saw to fill up, grab a hot cup of coffee and get out of the rain.

The station in question had a large covered area over the pumps, so Tim and I got our coffee and stood outside under that cover, talking and watching it rain. It was really pouring, along with some fairly frequent lightning. As I recall, we were mostly discussing how to get back on a course that would get us where we intended to go, and about the very bad riding conditions.

While we’re doing this, as happened nearly every time we parked the bikes anywhere there were people, folks would stop by, ask about the bikes, where we were from, where we were headed and so on.

Most of the time it’s just someone who’s always wanted to just ‘take off’ on a motorcycle ‘adventure’, maybe they saw the TV show “Along Came Bronson” with Michael Parks, or the movie “Easy Rider” and have some vision of the freedom, or perceived freedom, of taking a trip like that. Maybe they actually had a bike once, or have one now, but have never taken anything other than short, around town trips. For whatever reason, folks just seemed to want to connect with us whenever we’d stop.

That’s most of the time though… every once in a while, we’d have some strange characters strike up a conversation with us. This little tale is about this one particular stop, and some of the stranger things that occurred as we attempted to drink our coffee.

The first guy I remember, drove up to the pumps in a fairly nice mid-sixties Impala, nothing really flashy, just a sharp ride, with a very ‘healthy’ sounding engine.

On his way back out of the store, after paying for his gas, he walked directly up to us and started talking; about bikes in general, then bike trips and the weather ‘hazards’ on long trips. For the most part he talked, Tim and I listened and nodded our heads at what we felt were appropriate times.

I know I felt compelled to respond though when he said, and I quote: “I’ve been married… four, five or six times”. (After asking if we were married, I was, Tim wasn’t.)

My reply was, “Well that would explain why” (meaning of course if you can’t remember the count, they couldn’t have been very important to you) … but, without skipping a beat, he says: “If you two want, you can come and crash at my place, I’ve got plenty of room”

I think Tim and I both had visions of some sort of “Jeepers Creepers” scenario playing out of we did, and I know it was Tim who said, “Thanks, but we’re expected in Va. tonight”.

Interestingly enough, the fellow just nodded, went to his car, got in and drove off. End of conversation.

We speculated for a bit on what might possess someone to offer their home to two, totally unknown to them, bikers… In the best scenario he was just doing the Christian thing… in the worst… well let your imagination fill that one in… I’m sure we thought about it too. We didn’t get to speculate all that long though….

Guy number one, and I call him that as we’d never even exchanged names, had only been gone about 30 seconds when a beat up black Charger pulled up to the front door. Now this wasn’t a sixties “Dodge”.. but rather one of those late 80’s Chargers, that was a Charger in name only.

As the guy got out of his car and walked past us (remember it’s only about 8:00AM) Tim and I both detected the guy had the distinct smell of what we’d call a “Liquor Package”…

If you’ve been around a person who’s been drinking, and you haven’t, then you’ll also know there’s a different smell to someone who’s been drinking say, Jack Daniels heavily, than one who has been tossing back a few beers.

This fellow had that ‘brown liquor’ aroma for certain.

So, we’re standing still in front of the store, pondering the origin of a package like that at 8:00AM, and I’m facing the store with a view inside through the window. As we’re talking I notice that this same fellow, is in the back, at the beer coolers, and he’s extracting a 6-pack! My immediate thought was that he worked some strange ‘shift’ and was at the end of his “work day”.

At this point we’re about finished with the coffee, and lightly lamenting the fact that we have about 300 miles to cover, in the rain, for the third day in a row, when this fellow exits the store.

Instead of heading to his car, he of course decides he needs to talk to us.

As he’s crossing the maybe ten feet from the front door to us, he pulls a beer from his 6-pack, opens it, takes a long pull on it and starts in talking with us.

The actual first thing he said was: “Y’all want one?” as he sort of moved the 5 beers cradled under his arm. Although I have no doubt the offer was genuine, he also looked relieved when we declined.

In the course of the conversation he told us he had an evening job as a bartender, and that he’d closed up the bar, and had a ‘little’ after party, and was now on his way…. To work!

I had to ask…. “So, what is it you do?”

“I’m a heavy equipment operator” was his reply.

“Oh, so like what kind of equipment?” I asked

“Well, today I’m going to be operating a large trencher for buried cable” he responded.

“So, you work with different equipment or just this type?” I asked

“Well, it’s hard to say.” He said, once again prompting another question from me “Why is that?”

“Well, today is my first day on the job with this company” was his answer.

Then, and I swear I’m not making this up, as if to emphasize what he’d just said, lightning (remember the lightning?) struck a transformer not 200 yards down the road. The transformer exploded in a shower of sparks and when the sparks had died off, the top 5 or 10 feet of the pole was burning…

This fellow, obviously a practical man, said “Shit, that’s gonna bring the cops out, I gotta go, been nice talking to you guys” and with that, he was in his car and gone.

I remember later, that night, as Tim and I were eating dinner, we kept wondering how that guys first day on the job had gone. Did anyone notice he was drunk? Did they care? And how in the hell do you operate heavy equipment, intoxicated?

It’s made for a good story over the years… and the sad fact is, I know we also talked to several other people that morning (we were only there about 30, maybe 45 minute total), and the only two I really remember are these two. The rest were just too ‘normal’ I guess, or at least I perceived them to be!! I also remember we talked about writing all this stuff down, making a book out of our travels… but we never did… and unfortunately he and I are 1,000’s of miles apart and at our age it’s easier to remember our age, than what we did five, or ten years ago!!

So, I’ve decided that when one of these ‘characters’ drifts into mind, I’m going to write it down and post it.

I hope you enjoyed it.

Technorati Tags: Motorcycle - Road Trips - Characters - People
-IceRocket Tags: Motorcycle - Road Trips - Characters - People