About me
So, who am I? I’m just a lowly geek like probably most of you who are reading this. I enjoy much of the finer thinks of geekdom save a few aspects. I even do some things that most true geeks wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole.
So, you want to know more? Well, here’s my story. Before becoming a real geek, I was a history major looking to go into historic preservation, which is basically saving and restoring old historic buildings. It was going to be an interesting profession if I didn’t get caught up in technology. While I was at college, I took a website design course, which was the start of it all. I was extremely fascinated with ‘programming’ a computer (yes, yes, I know HTML is not a programming language, but in reality, it still gives a sense of actual programming, especially when you’re completely new). I then took a real programming course and that sealed my fate.
After switching to a computer science major, I became inately interested in Linux and especially clustering of Linux running computers. During this time, I created a small Linux LiveCD based off of Morphix called Clusterix. Clusterix used the OpenMosix clustering/load balancing software so you could boot multiple machines off of the LiveCDs and have an instant cluster. Unfortunately, Clusterix is now a dead project as support for OpenMosix has waned.
Later in my college education, I decided to try out working with some actual hardware. Ever since I was a child, I always took things apart to try to figure out how stuff works. So I bought a small microcontroller kit and started playing with the AT89C2051 microcontroller. This had me more interested than the website design class I took a few years before. I absolutely loved working with both software and hardware at the same time. It was the greatest thing since sliced bread as I could do anything I wanted. No more just working with code. I could now get my hands on the stuff running the code and change it up.
Then I thought: wait a minute, what if I combined the hardware stuff I was doing with my interest in clustering and parallel computing? This birthed a project called PComMS: Parallel Computational Microcontroller System. It was basically three microcontrollers linked together over a parallel bus I developed that worked together to generate a cellular automaton and pass the results back to a host computer. Of course it didn’t come near as fast as what the host computer could generate, but it proved a point that got me credit for an independent study course.
I had great dreams of going into computer engineering and high performance computing right until a family crisis that stopped me from finishing my degree. After the crisis, I ended up working for my parents at their retail store taking care of all the technically related things plus anything that required some muscle and construction skills. During this time, I built many things, put lots of stock away, and learned a few new things.
One new thing I learned was video editing. Well, actually it wasn’t entirely new for me. I had taken a video editing course back in college for the fun of it. But now I needed to produce commercials for the store. I was able to learn many new skills of the trade and buy/build lots of shiny new equipment. This is one of my possible career paths as I head back to college to finish my CS degree. Which one will I finally choose? This is now the story of my life.
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