After my contract with the State of Oregon, I had a short dry spell. The rain fell again in the form of a contract position where I was to create a bug-tracking database using Sybase and SQL with a front-end product called Scopus. This is not the same as the current product called Scopus. Be […]

Perhaps I should explain why I was so in love with C++. Well, it was just so good to be around it. It made me feel good. The world made sense in its presence. Be the first to like. Like Unlike

My layoff from Volt Energy Systems when the Portland office was closed down left me unemployed in an economy that was floundering. I tried my hand at consulting, but I’m just not good at marketing. If I wanted to be a salesman, I would have been a salesman. I’m much happier being a nerd. 2 […]

My first paying job was teaching programming classes at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) to children and adults. This was back when it was located next to the zoo in Washington Park. I made only minimum wage, but really enjoyed it. There was such a marked difference between teaching adults and children. […]

When I graduated high school, I ended up in various jobs: flipping burgers, folding linen at a hotel, warehousing, and working in a plasma donor facility spinning blood in a centrifuge. It was at the Fred Meyer warehouse in Clackamas, Oregon, that I had a back injury that set my life in a different direction, […]

When I was 12, I lived in Flagstaff, Arizona. It was a college town. We lived first on the west side and I went to Marshall Elementary. That would have been around 1968. One of my classmates was a particularly cerebral young man whose father worked at Lowell Observatory on the hills above the town. […]

On May 19, 2009, I posted one of the saddest blog posts of my life, “Where Are the Gauchos?” Due to the bankruptcy of Mother’s Cookies and Kellogg buying them up without making Peanut Butter Gauchos, I was looking at a bleak future without my favorite packaged cookies.

I’ve loved them since I was a kid. To me, they beat out Oreos and especially Nutter Butters. Don’t get me wrong. Both of these cookies are really good. I still delight to dunking an Oreo in milk and letting it get all smushy. I love to dunk a Nutter Butter too, but nothing is quite so wonderful squished between my tongue and my palate as a soggy Gaucho.So, the other day I was at a grocery store with a client. He disappeared down an aisle. When I went back to look for him, he had two packages of Gauchos in his cart. I rushed down the cookie aisle and found them there. They were even on sale! The package says, “They’re Back!” I am happy again.

One of the most maligned social institutions these days is a commercialized Christmas, and I believe, unfairly so. For me, Christmas, even as it is commercialized, is the highlight of the year. People are speaking out a lot lately about the evils of a commercialized Christmas. I want to defend it. 1 person likes this […]

As a Latter-day Saint, the first full weekend of October is the General Conference of the Church of of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Most of it is broadcast on cable/satellite television. I watch it on the BYU channel. It always holds lots of meaning for me, and every once in awhile, has something that […]

People who know me well know that I really don’t like chicken, but spice it up, add some veggies and especially peanuts, and I’ll gobble it right up. Kung Pao Chicken, I love you!