I've been an ethical vegetarian since 1986. I use the word "ethical" to
indicate that i choose not to eat meat because i like (other) animals and
can live a healthy and satisfying life without eating them. As opposed to
being a vegetarian because i care (anymore than most other people) about
health, appearance or fads. Whenever possible, i avoid things made of
leather or fur. I've been vegan at times, but i seem to lack the will
power to actually resist gingerbread pancakes and various desserts.
Locations
Work
| Current Resume
I've been a Unix sysadmin since about 1990, and using computers
since about 1983. A Unix system administrator is a person who "makes
Unix computer systems go," usually (though not always) so that other
people can use them to do whatever it is they want (or are being told
to want) to do.
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Being a sysadmin can involve any number of the following activities,
sometimes several at the same time:
- Ordering Unix machines or software from vendors.
- Lugging the large heavy boxes of Unix machines from where-ever
the carrier incoveniently left them.
- Unboxing, assembling and often rack-mounting said equipment.
- Installing whatever version of Unix you want (or your users
demand) on the box.
- Installing OS (Operating System) patches.
- Closing as many of the security holes as possible. (OS or
application holes left by the vendors.)
- Installing a boatload of software that makes the machine vaguely
usable. (Typically GNU and other
Open Source software. The commercial vendors make this necessary
because they typically move too slowly (or lamely) to include a recent
(if any) version of the useful Open Source software. On most of the
Commerical Unix systems i run, there's usually 2-300 MB of stuff i ftp
(File Transfer Protocol. It's an older but still very common way of
transferring data files around the Internet), compile, tweak configure
and install.
- Installing and configuring commercial software.
- Wasting days of one's life waiting on hold for customer support with
commercial vendors.
- Wasting more days of one's life trying to convince ignorant yet
strangely determined commercial customer support staff that there is a
bug in their product that they need to fix.
- Writing various kinds of computer code to automate as much of the
sysadmin process as possible.
- In the absence of developers (or skilled developers), writing
various kinds of computer code to make the applications that run on
the machine do what the developers and users want.
- Replacing hardware when it dies.
- Sitting in meetings, distracted by the endless mental dance of things
one should be working on.
- Being on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
- Driving in (or loging in remotely) at pretty much all hours of the
day and night to fix brokeness.
- Hopefully preventing, handling and cleaning up after (security)
break-ins to the software on the machines. (Attacks from both without
and within.)
- Answering educated or ignorant questions asked by users who are
able to find you.
It's kind of like being Scottie on the Starship Enterprise.
I own Tumbleweed Electron
Wranglers, Inc., a Sub-chapter-S corporation, incorporated in Texas,
and licensed to do business in Maryland. I'm also TEW's receptionist,
CEO, President, janitor, sysadmin, etc. (In other words, it's a one-person
company.)
I have two tattoos.
The first, the Berkeley Software
Distributionsmascot, i got in Austin, TX, sometime in January of 1994,
just above my left ankle, from a guy named "Carson," at Perfection Tattoo. Please
note that the BSD Daemon is copyright
Dr. Marshall Kirk McKusick, who is a god in the world of Unix, where i
spend a good bit of my brain cycles. I had the good fortune to attend a
BSD internals class he gave, and i was buzzing for about a week. It was an
awesome experience.
The second, i got on 27 March 2001 and 14 February 2002, at Dragon Moon, in Glen Burnie,
Maryland. Dragon Moon has earned an excellent reputation. Tom Beasley
founded the shop in 1978, and co-owns it with tattooist Mick
Michieli-Beasley, who is also very cool. I was lucky enough to have Tom do
custom artwork based on three little red, plastic monkeys from the "Barrel
of Monkeys" game you might remember from your childhood days. (Or maybe
you still play with 'em...) The tattoo is of
10 monkeys, wrapped around my left arm, starting on top of the
wrist and ending on the outside of the middle of my upper arm. I love
them, and hope to get more added.
Movies
I like movies. I probably watch about two a week on average. I can't
really identify which movie is my favorite, but i have identified some of my favorite movies.
A list of DVDs in my bookshelf..
Reading
Despite the PlayStation 2 and all of those movies i have seen, i can
still read, though i often can't remember what it was i wanted to read
next, or exactly the name of something i read.
Hence this Reading List
Friends
(Not a comprehensive list. :)
Stuff i'd like to do before i die
I'm not really sure why i'm starting this list, but it seems like a
useful exercise in futility.
- Hibernate
- Learn how to fly helicopters
- Sail across the Pacific (or at least around Polynesia)
- Ollie over a curb
- Drop-in to the bowl at Mabel Davis
