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**rms** · Apr 25, 2012, 08:31 AM

Google would like to find out too...

**Jonas** · Apr 25, 2012, 08:40 AM

Originally posted by rms View Post

Google would like to find out too...

I'm sure, but this ain't google is it

**rms** · Apr 25, 2012, 09:04 AM

Originally posted by Jonas View Post

I'm sure, but this ain't google is it

Since you've studied philosophy you'll understand... I don't know the answer to the Question. Who Am I? - something I keep asking myself daily...

What you've been doing, what you're doing now means little; but here is for the music and wine AND Kubuntu

**whatthefunk** · Apr 25, 2012, 09:10 AM

Originally posted by Jonas View Post

I'm sure, but this ain't google is it

It is now!
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&n...w=1587&bih=962

**Snowhog** · Apr 25, 2012, 08:14 PM

Hi Jonas. I'm Paul (and will leave it at that). I'm 55 as of last week. I'm the oldest of three siblings. I'm not married. I own (well, still purchasing) my own home. I own and ride a 2002 FXSTI Harley Davidson motorcycle and am a Life Member of H.O.G. (Harley Owners Group). I work for the Alaska Army National Guard - twenty three years so far - currently as the Financial Services Supervisor. I have six employees I supervise.

I live in Alaska, having first moved here in 1972-1973 (summer, after finishing my first year of High School). I was born in California, but consider Alaska my home. I'm a Type A personality, and want things done 'my way', which doesn't happen nearly as often as I would like. Welcome to the 'real world'. I'm my own worst critic. I'm a perfectionist, but don't always achieve perfection (contemplate the consequences of that!). I am quite conservative in my political views. I respect the office of the President of the United States, but I do not trust our current President. I believe that he is working to destroy the United States, to turn it into a Socialist country 'at best', or a Communist country 'at worst'. He has to go, and I hope that he will not be re-elected in November. I fear for my Country.

**woodsmoke** · Apr 25, 2012, 11:34 PM

Hi

Three kids one a computer programmer, one an astronomer, and one a manager in a white meat plant.

I'm older 'n dirt, have an earned MS in Plant Ecology, multiple publications, taught my whole career in a small town in the midwest, taught at some church schools and now teach in the biotechnology division of a junior college. I have many, many, many interests but mainly spend my time in a tiki bar that is just off the main drag, just north of the Slausson cutoff of MC West.

I travelled the world in the Navy, ushered at the Lyric Opera and got to watch Rudolph Nuryeve, contemplated "Hexagonal House Curiosly Abandoned", at the Chicago Art Institute, audited an entomology class at the World Gaming Institute at Carbondale, contemplated Storm Over Toledo when it was displayed at the Huntington in California, and studied the statuary in the entrance to the mausoleum at Forest Lawn (which I recognized later in the intro scenes of Phantasm ( lol ) ), I got to help navigate my ship into Majuro Atoll (as an enlisted man! ), stood outside the Hawaii 5-0 offices, and viewed Bonsai at the Governer's Palace in Kyoto.

And, yes, I could see both Russia and Alaska when we sailed through the Bering Strait, contrary to the media opinion.

I've manufactured education "hardware" produced board games, written education books, made videos and did some small programming in BASIC and java but now am just an "applications" sorta guy in Linux.

But being a "nature person" at heart, and an environmentalist, after I had seen the great big world I decided that living where I could be in the prairie biome, the forest biome, the river biome, and the lakes biome, all within a twenty minute drive of where we had our organic farm, that I could shake the dust of world travelling off my feet and live where people actually have some sense instead of screaming in your face with their agendas, most of which are later proven to be wrong.

Most people that meet me comment that I'm the most interesting science teacher that one could have, however, I don't drink Dos Eques, I drink Cuba Libre and usually have three, not two, beautiful women in my booth or on either side of me at the Tiki Bar!

woodsmoke

As

**SteveRiley** · Apr 26, 2012, 12:56 AM

Jonas! If we have met IRL, it was likely at some Microsoft-related event in Europe. Did you ever go to TechEds or TechDays?

You all know my name already. I'm a Virginia Beach native; my father was in the Navy. In 1975, when I was nine, my parents decided to return to central Ohio, where the rest of the family lives. I graduated from Ohio State University in 1989 with a BSc in computer engineering. That wasn't my first plan; originally, my lofy goals included playing principal French horn in the Boston Symphony or in a pit orchestra on Broadway. But I wanted to make money and have a family

My career began in the engineering department at Ashland Chemical, I was the computer wonk. I transferred to the IT department eventually. In 1995, I left there and went to the IT department at American Electric Power, just as that company was expanding its PC roll-out. We started with OS/2 to about 10,000 desktops and then switched to NT 4.0. I set up the plumbing to connect the company to the Internet. In 1998, Microsoft hired me into its recently-formed telecommunications consulting practice, part of Microsoft's consulting services organization. They moved us from Columbus to Denver. In 2001 they moved us again, to Seattle, because I transitioned to the Trustworthy Computing group. That's when I got into the conference circuit at events all over the world, speaking about many information security-related topics. I've traveled to six continents (and got spoiled rotten by an unceasing stream of international first class upgrades, yeah!). In 2005 I co-authored a Windows security book, and throughout the years I wrote several articles. Alas, it came to an end in 2009, when my entire team was laid off. I went to Amazon Web Services, where I worked for a year and half. It was good experience, because my knowledge of the cloud was almost zilch. Being on the inside of one helped me learn how the good cloud computing infrastructures are built and maintained, and I suppose that's why I remain such a fan. In 2011, I was enticed to join Riverbed Technology, and I've switched my focus from cloud security to performance.

During the time between Microsoft and Amazon, my wife, ah, "encouraged" me to get a hobby! So I changed the brake pads on the Trailblazer and then dusted off my French horn, which had idled for 18 years. Since then, my non-work time has largely involved music: I play in two symphonic bands and a British brass band. Lately, Kubuntu-related stuff has stepped in as well, and I'm considering some changes that will allow me to increase that time even more. This July, my wife and I will celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary. We have two children, one in 7th grade and one in 9th. I missed much of their infant/toddler time because of my traveling; it's good to be home now during their teen years.

I used to enjoy regularly riding my mountain bike (during at-home times) and hitting up the nearest rave (during traveling times), but these faded into the distance. And I'm OK with that. I read, a lot, and challenge myself to memorize most of what passes across the screens of my Nook and my PC. Favorite topics include various sciences, current events, politics, religion (although I'm not religious). I enjoy gaming, but tend to restrict that to what I can get for my PlayStation Vita. I'm considering purchasing an electronic keyboard and de-rusting my piano skills, what little they are.

It seems that we're concluding these with a sentence or two about food and drink. The process of eating has become rather boring for me. I don't know why, and I don't know how to fix that. I do enjoy white wines, especially bright in-your-face sauvignon blancs, and nothing beats a stiff gin and tonic -- with bitters, something I discovered at a neat pool-side bar in South Africa

**Qqmike** · Apr 26, 2012, 06:14 AM

woodsmoke, you forgot to mention your foreign policy, foreign relations experience. You did say, "... And, yes, I could see both Russia and Alaska when we sailed through the Bering Strait ..."
Cool. So, along with Sarah Palin, that makes you an expert on Russian foreign policy.

**woodsmoke** · Apr 26, 2012, 09:32 AM

Hi QQ,

I never said that I am an expert on foreign policy or Russia, but...I actually saw both Russia and Alaska from my ship and that has nothing to do with foreign policy for me but it does have something to do with foreign policy for the U.S. and Alaska.

Sarah Palin really DID have to "deal with Russia", just as do New Hampshire, and Georgia, and Arkansas and Hawaii.

And......since the contintents are within "physical" distance of each other ......the original DEW line began in AK and stretched across Canada.....

The military/National Guard in Alaska really DOES have a different and more "forward posture" than say.... the military, National Guard in Arkansas.

The military and National Guard in Hawaii have a different and more "forward" posture than those in Georgia.

One might remember that, aside from the fire bombs that were balloned to the U.S., and DID start fires, by the Japanese during WWII..... the OTHER attack by the Japanese on the physical landmass of the U.S. was in ......Alaska...

It is a shorter distance from Russia to the U.S. across the north pole than across Santa Barbara contrary to the opinions of the lefty citizens of California that think that the universe rotates around them.

Now, what is the actual chance of the Russians attacking us by having a landing party head for Alaska...? zippo....just like the possibility of the French attacking the British through the Chunnel.... but...the point is that although the physical possibility of Alaska being attacked by the Russians is zero....

The media went to great lengths to MOCK and REVILE Sarah Palin about something that really does exist, and they knew it, and they did it anyway because the media are in the tank for the Dems.

The terminology she used is the same that the kids in the school where I formerly taught when they have a Facebook page that says something to the effect of...."You really can see ..."....

But again, the point was, that as a lookout I could actually see Russia on the port side and Alaska on the starboard side as we steamed through the Bering straits.

The Captain made a "thing" of us "threading the needle" by sailing a very precise route along the "International Dateline" and sailing between the two "Diomede" Islands. The Big Diomede is Russian territory and the Little Diomede is the U.S. territory.

http://www.cruiseaway.com.au/cruise-..._strait_russia

However, because of our height above the sea, several hundreds of feet, and the use of "the big glasses", that even with the "curve of the earth" at about 12 miles for some one on deck, the distance is farther for someone as a lookout, the firing officer indicated what he said were the tops of mountain ranges, buried in the clouds and fogs, but assured us that we really could see hints of the physical "land masses", and why would the fellow lie?

There was no "controversy" about Sarah Palin in 1971, there was concern about Russia and the U.S. being in a physical war.

The continents are sufficiently close that there are many advocates of building a bridge or "chunnel" between the two places:

http://www.interbering.com/

So, again, Sarah Palin was not talking about seein Russia from Anchorage,

She was speaking both metaphorically about her dealing with the National Guard and military in a way that somebody in New York or California has no clue about and...

She knows about the to Diomede Islands....so it was both a metaphor and a physical truth ....

about which the media had no clue and they SHOULD have, maybe they should have done a little research, but no.....it was "Hate on Sarah Palin"... in the REPORTING media, not just the opinion media.

I, personally, think that she said it on purpose. She got plenty of street cred with people who look somewhat beyond their noses as opposed to those who think the world revolves around their "tweet of the minute opinion".

So, no, I don't have any clue about "foreign policy" but I do have two eyes and, with glasses, they are 20-20.

woodsmoke

**oshunluvr** · Apr 26, 2012, 10:49 AM

Everyone:

Short bio:
I'm 50, married w/4 kids - 3 grownup boys (previous marriage) and an 8 yr old daughter. Retired from Air Traffic Control (yes, it was occasionally stressful...

) at LAX in 2008. Owned a wine bar from 2004 until 2009, which I sold. Now working as a field network admin and programmer of sorts for an Air Traffic simulator company.

I grew up in the suburbs of Kansas City (still gotta have my BBQ!) and moved to Southern California in 1987. I've moved around a bit out here, from the high desert to San Diego and places in between - but right now I live in Long Beach and work in Hawthorne.

About 20 years ago I put my ski's away (30+ days a year on the snow for a decade) and took up scuba and sailing - hense the handle "oshunluvr" My vanity plate is OSHUN<heart>R (California has four symbols you can put on your plates; heart, star, diamond, hand) and that's where the spelling of the handle came from. My other car had BYDGLAS until I sold the wine bar (By The Glass...

) but now my wife and I are searching for a good new idea for our new car.

At 19 I was in college studing "Systems Analysis and Design" (a degree which no longer exists) when the Air Traffic Controllers went on strike and were fired - 1981. My Uncle was in Air Traffic management and when they started hiring replacements, he strongly suggested I go take the Air Traffic Aptitude test. I scored 97 out of 100 so in a few months I was out of school and in training! I am one of very few Air Traffic Controllers the did all three types of ATC in the USA - En Route, TRACON, and Tower. Fast foward 25 years later I retired. During that time I kept my interest in computers as an advanced hobbiest and even dabbled in computer repair for a bit (back when people still did that). I never really liked windows - I commented in another thread that Microsoft hasn't inovated anything since Windows 3.1 and I even switched to drdos as soon as it was available! My first "real" linux distro was Mandrake 7 (purchased on a stack of 3.5 floppies no less!) but I was using OS2 2.3 and eventually Warp when I started really digging into linux. I continued to have a Windows computer around - mostly for games - until my youngest son at the age of 7 at the time, managed to trash my entire install by "finding" a virus for the third time. That was the last straw and all our computers have been running linux since then - even my wife, daughter, and 72 year-old mother-in-law.

My wife and I spend most of our free time and money travelling around in our RV from winery to winery. We do an international trip annually - I've been to as many countries as I have states - but maybe not this year as I'm trying to build this new career into something. My company is based in Orlando as about 80% of the simulation companies are in the US (did anyone else know that?).

In 1987 when I first moved to SoCal I went to the beach one winter evening for the first time since moving here. I sat in the sand with my shoes in my hands and watched the sun sink into the sea. I vowed that day that I would never live further from the ocean than I did right then. I have managed to be within a mile of the water in every home I've lived in since then! Our eventual plans are to build a home on a five acre property I bought in North Carolina on the water. I will have my own dock and have my morning coffee aboard one of my boats as I prepare for the days fishing-sailing-scuba-boating adventure. Sounds great huh?

Until then, I'm plinking away at the keyboards at work and home and fix things on my 100 year-old house a block from the beach. When you add in my great kids and beautiful and loving wife I'm pretty darn lucky and satisfied.

**Qqmike** · Apr 26, 2012, 04:00 PM

woodsmoke -- I was only kidding you about being an expert on Russia :-) (Was not kidding though about Sarah Palin's view of her little world ...)

**bsniadajewski** · Apr 26, 2012, 07:08 PM

A little something about me

I'm 34 (as of this post), single, and living in the heart of the Badger State. Graduating from Pacelli (Catholic) High School (1996) in Stevens Point and Mid-State Tech College (WI Rapids campus, 1999), I currently work for my uncle at a auto salvage yard not too far from home. On good days during warmer months, I'll bike it to work rather than take my truck, a 2004 Ford Ranger, the short distance to work (hate to bike when it's below 50, too cold on my facewhen moving).

The first PC I used was a Tandy 1000SL I got for Christmas back in 1986. It had a Intel 8086(actually made by AMD), 640k of RAM, and Tandy Deskmate riding on top of MS-DOS 3.3 on 5-1/4" floppies and a 20MB hard card. Later I got a Packard Bell 486 with Win 3.1 and DOS 6.22. After that I moved to Dells: First, a XPS 450 (Pentium II 450MHz, 384 MB maxxed out, 12GB HDD w/ Win98), then a Dimension 8200 (P4 1.8GHz, 512MB RDRAM, WinXP, later Linux for the hell of it). My current PC (which is shown in my sig below) I've had for 5 years with no problems.

I first heard of Linux about ten years ago on a show called "The Screensavers" on TEchTV (now G$, I mean G4). I first tries Mandrake, then bought (yes, I mean bought) Suse 9.3 from BB and had plenty of fun with it. After playing with a half-dozen distros (not counting the version numbers) I've settled on *buntu family, especially Kubuntu. The configurability of KDE, plus the ease of Ubuntu and its large repositories, is what turned me on to it.

**Qqmike** · Apr 26, 2012, 07:25 PM

Well, two ex-wives and at least one crazy girlfriend (bi-polar, addictive, borderline personality disorder--tons of fun, nothing BUT fun) have described me as "complex." How many of you does that apply to! (The "complex" part, that is ... I suspect it applies to many here.) Age early 60's, born in the desert Southwest USA, grew up in Midwest IL-IN, returned to the Southwest at age 27 with PhD to take a job professing (Assistant Prof.) at a local state University (retired myself after 10 years w/Associate Prof. status w/full tenure). I notice many here have focused their story around The Career Path. At age 25 or so, I suppose I would have, also. Now I see it differently. Many people hate their career paths. What counts is not the "career" per se but whether you have pursued a "path of heart," doing what you really want to do [in life], not fearing to make risky choices (or copping out that you "had a family to raise, damn it!"), and always demanding from yourself that you live a full life as the amazing human being that you are (and just as amazing, btw, as the reptile, chimp, or that insect you just smashed and flushed down the toilet). We are more than what we do. If pushed against conventional norms, I guess I'd say I'm a pure mathematician in-drag. However, I have done and earned a living (never late paying a bill, always perfectly impeccable credit, saved money) at many things (freelance writer, and textbook writer, woodworker, and kitchen remodeling contractor, gambler (horses), technical consultant to gov't contractor (simulation modeling for computing cost contingency on estimates), freelance computer programmer working for researchers as well as wealthy Las Vegas system gamblers, Indian trader, semi-precious stone cutter, small-business consultant (turnaround work), and such -- the usual things we all do). Beliefs best summarized as being ... summarized between the poet/writer Charles Bukowski, [the possibly fictional] Don Juan Yaqui Indian Shaman (escorted by Carlos Castaneda), and some combination of Zen B. + the so-called "new physics." Have felt it best to avoid arguing about politics. Problem is that people fail to demarcate/distinguish (as in differentiate) political philosophy from political policy, and attempting to lecture them on the difference is not worth the concomitant stress. For example, in the USA, what red-blooded loyal American is NOT an independent, rugged individualist & no-government interference advocate? We all are. That's WHO we are. The * philosophy * of the Republican party ... AND of the Democratic Party (yeppers, that's correct, it's the * philosophy * of most liberals, as well). But how the two parties implement that philosophy--at the policy/law level--are (almost) completely diametric. On the Right, ladies and gentlemen, ya got yur superficial, religious, hateful bigots, rich sob's and big business. And on your Left, ladies and gentlemen, ya got yur damned educated, sensitive socialists (some say "commies") ... And so it (the discussion) goes from there, and just gets worse. So, no, no political views in this post. So, next subject, how about "Do No Harm"? Good principle to live by. But its extension is even better: Try your damnedest to help make people feel better, feel decently good, as good as you feel (wrt good water for drinking (and bathing), food, shelter, clothing, and support services such as basic medical care). Religion? Religions are different around the world. But not really: They all agree on that principle (do no harm, try to do even better: do good to/by/with your fellow man; the mystic Christ (and others) called it "love"). Religions ... different paths to the same goal/god/philosophy/energy field (as distinct from form). What else here? Let's see ... I like to watch birds, collect rocks, hang out in desolate badlands, drink booze, read (anything), and look at and flirt with pretty and not-so-pretty women. Began using Linux (Kubuntu) 2005 (because it was straightforward (to use) and fun vs XP). I used to like the GRUB bootloader; but the gods took it from the hands of us goofy mortals. Can't say that I blame them for doing so. Regrets in life? That I never learned to do household plumbing. But it's not too late, and I am trying.

**woodsmoke** · Apr 26, 2012, 09:22 PM

Something about this thread that is of great note to moi is the number of people that have fantastically multi-faceted backgrounds!

woodsmoke

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