[VBnet General] Biography

	(of sorts) By request, me, albeit tongue-in-cheek.	Randy (in black) providing systems support to a user
	Hometown	Toronto, Ontario Canada.
	Family	Two different wives, both named Joanne. Never learn, eh?¹ Was residing until recently with a cat, but after 18 amazingly affectionate years, she finally went to the Great Litter Box. (Offers to replace the cat are now being accepted -- female only, please - and no Joannes). I have three amazing nieces ... Sarah, a Queen's University Nursing graduate now working at a hospital outside Toronto; Jennifer, a dental hygenist, and Moog, aka Meaghan, the youngest, an up-and-coming bank employee. .
	Pets	A Christmas-gift dog - a black cockapoo!
	Favourite Sports	Golf, swimming, hockey (spectator only).
	First Windows experience	In an effort to reduce the costs in our department, it was decided in 1988 that we investigate desktop publishing systems to replace our dependencies on external typesetters for the newsletters and scientific posters we created. After half a year of examinations, the decision was reached and an ultra-fast Compaq Deskpro 286 with 2 megs of ram and a whopping 40 meg HD arrived. The application was PageMaker 1.0 for Windows 1. When Windows '286 came out, we thought we'd gone to heaven.
	Occupation	Senior Project Analyst at the Ontario Ministry of Health, Emergency Health Services Branch. Responsible for writing and researching policy submissions for the branch. Prior to working at EHS I did a large stint at the Ontario Ministry of Health's Laboratory Services Branch (LSB), the public health testing laboratory for the provincial government. I was a Systems Analyst / developer writing apps that communicated between Abbot's Axsym automated lab tester and our database. Prior to this I was a self-taught jack-of-many-trades in the Instructional Media Centre division of the lab, starting out first as as a darkroom technician, then photographer, video editor, desktop publisher, and web site creator. And before all this I was a commercial photographer, and prior to that, a musician (guitar, electric, rock & roll).
	Languages	English, Basic, enough French to read a menu, enough C to read the MSDN.
	Education	As fate would have it, my two years in grade 9 were the same two years the Ontario government had decreed that ALL public school grade 9 students would take both mandatory French and mandatory Latin. To this day, I blame these for my crash and burn of '66. The result of this language infusion after two years: a couple of swear words in French and Latin, never being able to forget, despite how hard I might try, when to use the Ablative case, and generating profound but syntactically incorrect Latin statements like "Semper ubi sub ubi" (Always where under where). Fortunately, after two years of failure by half the province's students the mandatory Latin part was dropped. Having free periods I promptly signed up to take part in The Latest In Technology ... electronic data processing. Man, those card sorters were noisy. Unfortunately, however, I had no idea (nor was any really given) as to why the sorter was sorting as it was, but since I was duly capable of stacking sorted cards and extracting the little piles, I managed a pass. Thus went high school until I made a discovery half-way through grade 10 .... girls love guys who play guitar. And often, too! In order to capitalize on my new-found discovery I joined a band and ended up touring Ontario for over two years playing good 'ol rock & roll for Friday and Saturday night high school dances (while still going to school Monday to Thursdays). Amazingly as well, my grades also shot up even with all this extra-curricular activity, achieving 100% in maths (the median by which I've always measured successful schooling) and sciences. Happy boys make happy grades, I guess. And I sure was smiling. After high school I took the Audio Engineering course offered by the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. Learned a ton, met some of the names in audio, and, on completion, I was totally amazed to be offered a job back in Toronto. Yes sir, I could be part of the behind-the-scenes music industry. Fifteen dollars a week, midnight to 8:00 am shift. Thanks. I took up photography.
	Favourite Job	Other than a rock & roll idol, I was the DJ at a roller skating rink (the guy who said <baritone>"The next song is for couples only."</baritone>). This career path was almost as rewarding as being a musician.
	Favourite Authors	Sydney Sheldon, Stephen King.
	Favourite Movies	To Kill a Mockingbird, Back to the Future 1, Close Encounters, Jurassic Park, Nuts, and anything with 'Hitchcock' in the credits.
	Development Systems	HP Blackbird 002 LC, 30" Apple Cinema Display, Windows Vista Ultimate.
	Publications	None, although every once in a while I've considered writing one. Guess with .Net there's not much point in further thought, either, as I've yet to become enamoured in any way with this language.

	Footnote 1	1'eh'. A unique colloquialism native to Canada. Often used incorrectly in conversation by non-Canadians, thereby making those people easily discernable. Not to be confused with the American 'uh?'
	Footnote 2	Ever wondered what a Smiley looked like from behind?

PayPal Link