I’m am currently engaged to the most wonderful woman in the world. She also happens to be my best friend. We live in “Americas Finest City” otherwise known as San Diego. I have a lot of hobbies some are benign and others are fairly dangerous. When we aren’t remodeling the house or working on a “honey do” list. I spend my spare time exploring old mines and ghost towns throughout the western US. Lately I have been taking my fiance’ and friends out to some of the more interesting places that I have already explored alone. I also like exploring interesting geological formations. In fact the more remote a location the better I like it. I’m just as comfortable in 110 heat in the desert as I am in subzero cold. Most of the places I go are easily accessible with an SUV or a short day hike. 4WD is not required in most cases but it certainly does help.
Professionally I am a Senior Programmer Analyst/Software Engineer in San Diego.
Currently I work with Hewlett Packard as a consultant on the NGEN contract. I write programs and utilities to apply, test and ensure that all security patches are applied across the 750,000 node network. Primarily I write WMI scripts that read write and analyze the network and load the results into a SQL database.
I worked at QUALCOMM for fourteen years, I was there when they were a just a start up company. While there I honed my SQL and developer skills. I would take lots of text files, that were generated by our Network Operations Center, parse the files using PERL, JAVA, and .NET. Then load them into a SQL server. At first it was done on Microsoft SQL Server and eventually moved to an Oracle SQL database. To use some tech parlance ETL (Extract Transform and Load). Then I would do lots of data analysis of the data. I would build data cubes and display the results via ASP or ASP.NET. Some Reports were generated using SSRS, Crystal Reports, Cognos or ad-hoc SQL queries and via ASP/ASP.NET web pages.
The analysis could be anything from trending to looking for statistical variances or for trending. I have also done a lot of geographic analysis and supported field engineering, NOC engineering, billing, finance, marketing, sales and customers. The databases consist of more than 150 tables and 1300 stored procedures. The databases are more than several terabytes in size and are completely rotated out every ninety days. We recently completed porting the databases from SQL Server to Oracle, which involved rewriting just about everything.
Prior to working at QUALCOMM I was employed as a consultant to Arthur Andersen Consulting in Minneapolis. On the Passenger Revenue Accounting project ensuring that all travel agents were billing in accordance to rules that were in effect at the time of the ticket charge.
Before that I was in the USN Navy I flew as a crew member aboard P-3 Orions until I retired. I started my Naval carreer as most do in Great Lakes IL. Upon Graduating boot camp I went to AW A school in Memphis TN. The I went to Aircrew Candidate School in Pensacola FL. After which I went to VP-30 in Jacksonville FL to learn P-3C’s. Then I trained in Damnek VA for TSC (Tactical Support Center) training. I then went to San Diego CA for SERE (Survival Resistance and Escape training. Afterwards, I finally reached my first real duty station in Misawa Japan. While there I went to Diego Garcia BIOT(British Indian Ocean Territory) for TAD (Temporary Additional Duty). I left the Navy for 90 days when when the detailer couldn’t get me to a squadron. When I came back in I was sent back to Great Lakes IL and then sent to VP-50. I loved VP-50 I spent 6 years there as a SS-1 for CAC-9 (Combat AirCrew). I met and married my wife while in VP-50. Our twin boys were born at Moffett Field CA. I made deployments to Adak AK, Misawa JP and to Diego Garcia. After I left VP-50 I was an instructor at VP-31 via Instructor training at Bangor WA. Following VP31 I was invited to fly with VPU-2. Patrol Squadron Special Projects Unit Two was the best assignment anyone could ever have in the Navy. I loved that assignment. In addition to living in Hawaii, I saw the world. There were years I would spend 250+ days on the road. My daughter was born in Hawaii while I was in VPU-2. After VPU-2 I was transferred to ASWOC (Anti-Submarine Warfare Operations Center) San Diego. I retired out of the Navy in San Diego.
I also am an amateur astronomer, photographer and musician. I play piano, trombone, baritone, saxophone and guitar (electric and acoustic). I do read and write music but mostly for my own enjoyment.