May of 1999, I took a job for a local advertising agency. They shall remain nameless, so that my scum-sucking pig ex-boss doesn't send his scum-sucking pig lawyers after me. I should have known that this job was cursed, because on the way to my second day of work, my car was BACKED INTO by a Bronco, crumpling the bumper and part of the hood. That set the tone for my whole job. I was completely abused by my boss for most of the nine months I was there. I think the first couple were just buttering me up to prepare for the rest. Thankfully, they fired me in Febuary of 2000, and I was able to collect unemployment while I looked for a better job.
April of 2000, I started at Easy Access - Netspaces. These are sister ISP and web design companies out of the same office. I was hired to be technical support, but, it's a small company and I ended up "wearing many hats" (geekspeak for 'overworked and underpaid'). I answered the phones, acted as technical support, learned a great deal about NT and UNIX systems administration, handled basic web design, and generally did what I was asked to do. I was promoted once (with an associated raise) and was put in charge of the technical support staff, meaning I supervised between one and three people at a time (based on the turnover rate). After starting at Easy Access, I bowed down at the altar of User Friendly -- an online comic strip about working for a small ISP. While I wasn't as well-trained as "Miranda" (one of the characters)...I did relate to much of what she went through in the earlier strips.
The web design I did wasn't all that complex, but, I'm proud enough of it, anyway! Some of the pages I was handed at work:
I moved on to a job at Teachers Federal Credit union, as a computer operator, running batch jobs and training to provide network technical support. Before I could really settle into that job, I was offered a job at Brookhaven National Lab as a member of the IT staff for the RHIC Computer Facility, which provides computer support the RHIC experiment. I took that job without looking back. I've been here since January of 2001, and I would be perfectly happy to retire at the Lab, if they'll have me that long.
I'm a registered Republican, but that's just to annoy my mother. At heart I'm a liberal who's perfectly happy annoying people who think "Political Correctness" is *really* all that important. I collect and use slang expressions, and I have a particular fondness for slang from the 1940's and 1950's.
A claim to fame of mine is the fact that the main character in a novel was based on me. Yes,a published novel, and not one of those places where you pay to be published, either! "Sparrow's Flight", a novel from M. Evans and Company Publishing, by Richard Posner, is about a high-school girl named Julie who's involved with Renaissance Faires, and fantasy in general. Things get sorta sticky when she and her friends get a bit *too* involved in it. It shows how teens lacking confidence can get caught up in a fantasy world - and is well-written without being preachy. You can find it through used book stores, try Bibliofind.com.
I'm married to Gary Weiner, a night-shift "Machine Operator" (computer programmer) for Brookhaven National Laboratory's National Synchrotron Light Source. He help keep the X-Ray and Ultraviolet Synchrotron Rings from developing artificial intelligence and ruling the world. While he *claims* to be working hard all night, I've noticed him bring up "Quake", "Java vs. Javascript", and "alt.sex.fetish.widgets" in everyday conversation, leading me to suspect that he's sitting on *his* duff all night, but getting paid for it.
I admit my photo gallery of Ben is woefully out of date, as are ALL my pictures.
One of the, oh...first ten people or so I was to meet, was this guy who played a character named 'Garen'. We got to roleplaying, and talking, and eventually discovered that we actually lived in the same state (which was pretty incredible to me, at that point, I kept 'meeting' people from different countries and the West Coast), and the college he attended (SUNY Stonybrook) was only about forty minutes from my house. We got to talking, and realized that we had almost TOO much in common, sharing a lot of the same views and personality traits. It got to the point that we would complete each other's sentences online, like an old married couple. Also, I discovered that he's the one with the part of my brain I was always claiming was missing: he could do math without counting on his fingers! There was nothing else to do but adopt him as my brother.
One of the proudest moments in my life was being invited to participate in his and his girlfriend Lisa's handfasting. They're married now. I missed the wedding, but, I did get to catch up on the pictures.
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