Menomonie, Wisconsin, USA
I grew up in Menomonie, Wisconsin, attended the University of Wisconsin-Stout where I was awarded a BS degree in Industrial Management - Graphic Arts.
I've always been a tinkerer, I started interior house painting with my mother at age 5, and at 12 was repairing neighbor's appliances.
I saw my first computer (an IBM1130) at Stout when I was 12 and fell in love with computers. When I was a sophomore in high school, we had a Monroe programmable calculator and the school setup a printing terminal connected to a machine in La Crosse. These were my first machines I programmed.
The summer after my junior year I enrolled in a Fortran course at Stout (on that same IBM1130) and became such a pest that the operators taught me how to run the machine. By the next summer I was working part time operating that computer (and helping students debug their programs), and part time programming the school's brand new DEC 11/40 (BASIC.)
At last count I've worked with 12 computer languages and at least 6 different types of machine. Most of the past 15 years has been spent using IBM AS/400's (now called iSeries and Window's PC's.
My father is a photographer and set up the photo courses at Stout in the early 60's (there are a lot of pictures of scenery with my back in the foreground!) He gave me his Nikon F camera body when I was in High School, and I used it and a Yashica D twin-lens reflex camera to shoot pictures for the school paper and yearbook. (This also gave me access to the school darkroom which was located in the chemical storage room in the chemistry lab--I may have done some "unauthorized" experiments.) I continued to shoot pictures through college for college publications.
I have done many different jobs over the years: tinker, cook, programmer, slide-rule designer, direct-mail advertising, newspaper delivery, business analyst, truck farmer, greenhouse worker, wedding photographer, political party delegate, graphic designer, printing press operator, non-profit administrator, bookkeeper, auto mechanic, automobile service writer, garage manager, resume writer, technical writer, girl scout leader, EMT, and festival vendor.
I enjoy cooking (well, developing recipes it's hard for me to make the same thing the same way twice, I always want to tweak it to improve it!) Here is my recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies.
I have raised and been owned by multiple cats, one of whom is living with friends in Madison and just turned 20. I currently have 4 cats sharing my life.
I've been married and divorced once, helped raise a wonderful (and difficult!) girl.
The older I get the less I know, but I have lots of opinions!
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