About

Published on September 2, 2021 at 12:06 pm by LEW

About Myself

Twice retired, because the first one did not take! That is to say that I have retired from two long term jobs. At the start, there were a number of short term jobs, mostly manual labor (because living costs money). While not long term career opportunities, bucking hay bails, shoveling out stables, cleaning restrooms, picking fruit and vegetables, hauling trash, and washing cars, can teach you a lot about life.

My first really long term job/career was with the U.S. Coast Guard, starting as a non rate (unskilled labor). This is where I received my first accredited technical training (I am not counting high school vocational training). I joined hoping to remain close to home, which never happened. I was surprised to find myself spending a large amount of time outside the continental United States, and out side of the country during the first part of that career.

After the U.S. Coast Guard I worked for BD, a medical company in the private sector doing systems engineering for US Service, then Global Service. Having come from a military background, I found myself in a unique position to make comparisons between Military/Civilian, and Government/Private sector. Both had there own unique issues, advantages, and disadvantages. But the one thing they had in common was the ever increasing levels of bureaucracy I could see over time.

At some point I will delve into some of the life lessons, but this introduction is not the place to do that. So in the spirit of keeping things short, I have had a forty plus year career in various technologies. I started with electromechanical, and moved on to computers and networking, and systems engineering. I have been a people manager, a project manager, a trainer, and a technical writer. And lest I forget, a common laborer.

About This Site

I like to think of this site as my retirement project, as I don’t think I will ever truly retire. This reasoning allows me to go against the common blogging wisdom. I have observed that some people get into web sites and blogging to make money. While it would be nice if this site could earn enough to pay for itself, money is not the reason why I am doing this. Nor is filling a niche category , gaining lots of clicks, or developing a large audience the reason.

To put it simply, once one retires, one still needs to do something. This is what I have chosen to do. Looking back on my various careers, my most satisfying moments came from fixing things that others had given up on. While not as often now, I still get some of chances to do that.

After that teaching and writing were two of the things that gave me the most satisfaction. Which is kind of funny because back in my high school days, I would have said I had no talent in either area.

So I will write about technical things that interest me, life lessons, and what ever else catches my attention. And if I am lucky, some of you may learn something you didn’t know before.

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