User Profile

I got interested in computer programming about, oh, 50 years ago in high school. We had a "computer" that was really just an overgrown calculator-in-a-suitcase made by Wang. It could be programmed by puching holes in cards that were then placed into a card reader that had to be snapped shut manually. It was OK to write a program that required multiple cards of about 80 instructions each, but God forbid you should ever write a loop that crossed cards! I found out about that the hard way.

My life has been like a computer program that hit a bad instruction but has an infinite memory ... so many unexpected twists and turns, yet still just humming along. In high school I studied physics and chemistry, challenged algebra and trigonometry, and had my mom drive me to calculus classes at the local JC because I was too young to drive. In college I started studying chemical engineering, but switched to music, then I transferred to a Bible college where I finished a degree in the ministry. At Bible college, a psychology class spurred me to do a graduate degree in that subject; but instead of studying clinical psych and counseling, I ended up intrigued by experimental psych and statistics.

Eventually I ended up back in engineering, this time of the computer science variety. While I was working on a Ph.D. at UC Santa Cruz, I got the call that this startup Silicon Spice needed another crazy programmer. Jettison the degree ... let's go for the stock options!

I have been a religious person pretty much since I was born. I was baptized in the Lutheran church as a baby. But like the psychologists would say, I spent the first few years of my life worshipping the nipple and then the toilet. One day around the sixth grade I noticed girls, and it's never been the same since. But the fact is that for most of my life I have with great piousity and fanfare worshipped the holy trinity of me, myself, and I.

Fortunately, even when we are not looking for God, sometimes he invades our world anyway. In my case, I knew God as earnestly as an ignorant teenager could for about 15 years in the 1970's and 1980's. But eventually I left God to follow this new religion I had discovered ... square dancing. Of course, square dancing was just a way to meet girls and hold their hands. But it was as warm a social arena as the church had ever been for me. While square dancing, I met the girl who became my wife and holds my hand through thick and thin. Through the influence and prayers of our families, God again invaded our little world in 2003 and turned it upside down.

It is my hope that you find in my journal something interesting about computers, physics, chemistry, algebra, trigonometry, calculus, moms, music, bible, college, psychology, statistics, Luther, girls and boys, square dancing, holding hands ... and God.

Friends (12):

Friend of (13):