[geeks] Introductions (was Re: Etiquette)

[Brian Hechinger]

Brian Hechinger. 27. 4.5 year old daugher [1] married for 5.5 years, getting
divorced this year.

i'm a Senior Solaris Administrator by trade.  Alas, an unemployed one.  i've
been laid off from the last two jobs i've worked at and i'm not having a whole
lotta luck finding a new job.  times are tough in this area.  i had been working
for half.com but left since an hour commute each way was killing me, as well as
my vehicle.  i left there to work for Mack Trucks, where i worked for many
months until they were purchased by Volve and had every budget cut nearly in
half.  they laid off, 22%? something like that.  it was a mess [2].  i then
went to work for Agere Systems for two months and then got laid off from there
[3] so i'm not doin' so good picking my companies. :)  i'd go back to half.com
but (a) i don't think i want to put up with their BS ever again and (b) they
won't hire me cause i won't put up with their BS (when i did work there i was
the rock of gilbralter[sic] to many other techies with my "fuck you and let me
get my work done" attitude.)

i went to college thinking i wanted to be an engineer.  up until that point i
had only had access to 8-bit home boxes and PCs running DOS and/or Win3.1.
i was not impressed with either.  sure, i played around with them, and i did
even buy a 386 my senior year in high school.  but i only ever used it to play
Mechwarrior, run AutoCAD and dial into BBSes.  but that's really it, never
really tinkered around too much.  tried OS/2 and DESQview, but never really
got into them either.

then i went to Penn State.  got a mainframe account.  ok, mainframes RULE.
then i was given an account on an IBM RT running 4.3BSD Tahoe.  ok, mainframes
don't rule, although they are amazingly cool.  BSD on the other hand.........
needless to say, i was hooked.

it's pretty much been a downhill thing ever since.  i now own a metric butt-
load of Sun, VAX, MIPS and my beloved PDP-11 computers.  i've long since crossed
the line from hobby to mental illness.

been a solaris admin for over 5 years now.  i love it.  i think it's an amzingly
good time.  i have tons of computers.  what do i do with them??  i set them up.
then i make sure they run well.  run what you ask?  don't know, that's the same
question that i keep asking myself over and over.  but what they run isn't the
point.  it's that they do run, and all needed services are available.  THAT,
after all, is the point. :)

-brian

[1] www.arkham.ws/~wonko/images/avalon

[2] check the archives of this list, or one of these lists.  i bitch and moan
    about getting laid off after the volve purchase.  then we start talking
    about volvo cars.  damned geeks, can't keep their attention on one thing
    for too lon........ ooooohhhh, shiny.

[3] i probably would have quit anyway, i HATED working there.