I used to be indecisive but, now I am not sure

I like a variety of things.  As with most people, my likes have changed with age. In the early 80's. I was into hacking/phreaking and CB radio.  In the mid to late 80's. I was getting drunk every night, Constantly at concerts, slam dancing, and generally, being a nusiance with my friends.  I was also into Bulletin Boards. Bulletin boards were like crude websites that people could access via telephone lines. You had a basic PC, like a IBM XT or Apple II+, with a modem, and some lame ass software and VIOLA!, you had a BBS. You could get/read messages, upload/download files, and so on.  Before every slack-jaw retard with a credit card could buy a computer, only people who knew about computers had them. These people make the BBS scene enjoyable and informative. I ran, and still run The Lunatic Phringe BBS.  Click here to visit the Phringe website. There are hundreds of text files from the golden age of personal computers/BBSing/hacking/phreaking.

I still have a small fascination with old computer systems. NeXT systems,  PC XT's, Apple II's, early Mac's, and so on still interest me.  I work with more modern systems every day, but it is fascinating to me to see how systems have evolved. My first IBM type PC, a Laser 2000 XT Clone had a 20 Megabyte hard drive and man, it was the shit.  My PC before that only had a floppy drive and the one before that had a cassette you loaded programs from. Computers really have come far.

I have been into music and audio for the longest time.   I like making music and listening to it.  I like punk, Industrial, Trance/Electronica, some of that 80's techno sound, and plain old rock and roll. Some of my favorite bands are: The The, Sisters of Mercy, Rush, KMFDM, Nitzereb, Dead Kennedys, Talking Heads, Plasmatics, Ramones, Van Halen (Not Van Hagar), Underworld, Iggy Pop,  Aphex Twin, Underworld, BT, Moby, FSOL, AC/DC, Metallica, Def leppard,  AC/DC, Pink Floyd, , Queen, The Cult, The Cure, NIN, Ministry, Thrill Kill Kult, Screaming Blue Messiahs, and Older Genesis, to name a few.  I like just about all sorts of music but, Those are my favorites. The music has to sound good too. I have never owned a clock radio. Mainly, because the fidelity sucks. I like my music sounding good and LOUD. I plan on doing some more MIDI stuff in the future.

Digital Video is my latest venture. With the birth of our baby daughter, I went out, bought a Sony Digital Camcorder, and a new Apple Cube and have been editing/creating my own videos. Transitions, effects, it is all really cool how you can take a plain old tape of a birthday party or something, cut out the crap and make an interesting tape. My Mac is great. I have used it for hours at a time. Cruising the web, listening to MP3's, chatting on my chat, and rendering/working on multi-gigabyte video files and never a crash.  My new out of the box Dell 1.3Ghz Windows XP laptop  from work crashed 30 minutes after I had it. My G4 Cube has not crashed yet. As of this writing, this is 6 months.  OSX ROCKS!

For a living, I work at the headquarters for a large international packaging corporation. I manage the department that does Wide and Local area networks, UNIX systems, Routers, DSU's,  Firewalls, Webservers, email, windows 2000 servers, Novell servers, VPN's, and so on. I am responsible for networks and systems in the US, Canada, the UK, Malaysia, and Holland. I try to avoid PC's when I can, but they are everywhere. My department handles them too.   After using  VAX, Prime, Novell, OS/2, NeXT, HP-UX, IBM AIX, SUN,  and a variety of PC and Mac systems, I have come to realize how inferior Windows, and just about all other Microsoft products really are.  Windows is not particularly easy to use and not the most reliable or performance oriented operating system but, it is popular. Just goes to show that people buy shit. Take the latest release, Windows XP.  Wow man, it has all this "COOL" stuff.  MP3's, ripping CD's, digital video editing, built in wireless networking support.  Did I forget to mention I am impressed?  Mac had that crap over 18 months ago.  XP is just another example of what Microsoft does best, which is steal ideas from other companies and them claim them as their own. Don't believe the hype.

I mentioned earlier that my wife and I just had a baby.  Audrey is her name and honestly, I was never much for kids. My sister had a baby a few years back while I was in Ireland, and my wife has several nieces and nephews. I never disliked kids, but I never really appreciated them.  I tell ya, I do now.  When my 4 month old daughter grabs my finger, coo's, and smiles at me, my soul is lifted and my heart melts. I am sure this is a feeling every new father has and that I am not alone. It really is cool. If you are reading this and contemplating having children, DO IT! Don't have 40, but have at least 1, maybe 2.  They will keep you young.

This webserver also participates in the SETI@HOME project. SETI = Search for Extra Terristrial Intelligence. This is a very clever way to use un-used CPU cycles from millions of PC's on the internet to analyze transmissions received by radio telescopes. One main system hands out small per parts of a problem for each PC to solve. That PC returns the answer and is then handed another small part of a problem. Over 2 million PC's are now actively analyzing these signals. Such an arrangement could help in other areas such as finding a cure for cancer.  You know the old saying, 2 million computers are better than one.

Anyway, enough of this babble. Check out the Opinions section.  Also, check out the SETI@HOME page in the link above.