Thursday, March 20, 2008

Computers

My day job is installing and working on all kinds of technology. It is what I have done since the late 1980's, however I built my first computer in the early 80's. It was a Sinclair ZX-81. It was introduced in 1981. Sinclair merged with Timex not longer afterwards and that model became the Timex Sinclair.
I built it from a kit that cost me $99.00. It had 1k (that's right K) of RAM. You connected it to a TV. I built an interface that allowed me to save the programs I wrote or typed in from a magazine to a cassette recorder and then I could restore them back to the computer. It used BASIC only. I subscribed to the monthly magazine and copied most of the programs in them to the computer then to the cassette. The block on the back of the picture is a 64k add-on RAMpack. I bought that plus several pre-recorded cassettes at a close-out for $10 or so a couple of years later. That seems to be my way of buying computers - I buy it and then a week later the price drops by half!!
I then went to the Commodore 64. I became a Commodore authorized computer dealer. I did that part-time while working at several "real" jobs in order to pay the bills. In 1987 I started working part-time for an office supply business that was trying to get into computers. I knew more about computers than anyone there, even though I was just hired as a gopher. Eventually I worked my way into the "computer guy" and quit my day job and started working for them.
Toward the end of 1989 I joined with several other guys to start our own computer business. We sold, installed and supported medical office management software that ran on UNIX. I was the hardware and UNIX support person. We covered all of Kansas, a bit into Missouri and also Oklahoma.
I did that until we sold the business in 1995, then continued to work for the guys who bought the company, doing the same thing I had previously been doing.
In 2000 they moved me from the Midwest to Florida to become the Regional Service Manager. That lasted until August 2001 when I went back to Kansas.
That takes me to doing what my current job is Technology Support Specialist for a State University covering the western third of the state.
More in a later post. I don't want to bore you too much at one time.

Friday, March 14, 2008

Photography thoughts

I am currently taking a photography correspondance course from the New York Institute of Photography. It was a bit expensive, but it seemed like they had a lot of good lessons and information that could help me.

I consider myself a photography enthusiast. I have been taking pictures ever since my grandmother gave me her first Brownie box camera. (How I wish I still had that one!) I was probably around 12 years old or so and even though it didn't have a flash, it was mine.

I now have a Canon 10d digital camera that I bought used from ebay. I decided that spending $500 to find out if I really had (or could acquire) the talent and inspiration that is needed to bring out the things I have in my mind was better than $2000 for the newest model with all the bells and whistles.

I am learning some things. Some I have picked up from the correspondance course, some I have figured out by looking at what I had taken and how it could have been done better.

I have been asked to provide some photos for the University I work for in their publications and news departments. I don't know if I will ever get anything published, but I am sending things in to them when I can. That has helped get me into thinking more about what they could use and less about just taking pictures of things just because I think they are pretty.

My long range goals are to get through my course, start asking around to see if any friends would model for me and eventually start a photography studio that I can use to take maternity and newborn pictures.

I really enjoyed taking pictures of my grandson when he was a baby. Mostly I took the monthly series of portraits, but every once in a while I would just start photographing him just doing whatever babies do.
Isn't he a doll. I even like his little elf ears. He is three years old now, and he is my buddy.
More on him in another post, I think.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Starting out

While I am not much at putting random things down in writing, I will need to decide which way I want this to go. Do I make this about my photography, my family, my work? At this point, I am not sure. I will have to see where my remblings take me.
I have debated about starting this for a quite a while. My biggest decision was whether I would keep it up. I hope to conquer that fear by adding this to my Google Start page so that I will see it on a regular basis.
Here's to blogging!!!