Hello world!
Posting my complete profile here since I didn’t have room initially:
Started my love of computing with an Apple 2E in junior high, playing Lemonade and Star Trek. When Adventure and other text-based games came out, I was hooked for good. Bought my first computer (Tandy) in 1987-88 from Radio Shack, which led to learning how to manage memory and run command line DOS. This led to getting online, when that meant using a modem to dial into BBS systems. And that led to signing up for Prodigy, CompuServ, AOL, GEnie, where I could play multiplayer online games for the mere price of $6/hour. I figured out that volunteering in the game would get me free game time, so I stayed there and was eventually hired as a GameMaster, where I learned how to do scripting and manage community events.
Posting my complete profile here since I didn’t have room initially:
Started my love of computing with an Apple 2E in junior high, playing Lemonade and Star Trek. When Adventure and other text-based games came out, I was hooked for good. Bought my first computer (Tandy) in 1987-88 from Radio Shack, which led to learning how to manage memory and run command line DOS. This led to getting online, when that meant using a modem to dial into BBS systems. And that led to signing up for Prodigy, CompuServ, AOL, GEnie, where I could play multiplayer online games for the mere price of $6/hour. I figured out that volunteering in the game would get me free game time, so I stayed there and was eventually hired as a GameMaster, where I learned how to do scripting and manage community events.
After this, I took an apprentice programmer position with a bank, which turned into a full-time job there with the first decent pay I'd ever earned. I maintained assembly code to prepare for Y2K, learned COBOL and JCL and then energetically grabbed onto the WWW and started my own web design company in 1999. Learned Smalltalk, my first object-oriented language, and got to work on the bank's web development team. Took a slight detour to learn project management but am now back in IT, which is what I love, as a technical program manager, scrum master, and conduit between our developers and our business partners. I also do XML-based configuration, maintain our Microsoft SQL Server databases, participate in code reviews, draft and review technical specifications, and design solutions to streamline business processes.