beina DAD, mannn
2000 - ClairCom starts shutting down
A big layoff was coming my way.
(Did ya notice I'm not mentioning Y2K?)
I'd learned Sun's Unix by now.
Weird things like Perl, C++, and a buttload of 2 letter commands. But, eh, a pretty boring OS... Sure, it'll run a network and oracle and a webserver. But the user interface is basically not even THERE! I like Unix. But only for work.
Back to Windows95 at home !
Yep. I'd officially become a CLONE. It was hard to accept for a post-Amiga-ite... HARD! And my kids were getting old enough to give me a teeeny bit of peace. Started back on my MIDI SEQUENCER called "Ditty". (Itty bitty MIDI sequencer)
The 80x86 had grown past the horrid segmented architecture. And the Windows OS had a robust GUI compared to the Amiga's. Open up a dialog and pop in controls via a resource editor. It had threads and memory mapped files.
Bought the MS C++ compiler and it came with MSDN. ALL the docs you could want right there ! I really missed having a nice paper book, but at least I didn't have to GO GET em. MSDN - truly remarkable.
Figured out that MFC (main C++ GUI library) was a pile of crap. But one I could learn from. I rewrote all the good parts into my own library. A set of .h files of different GUI classes. On the Amiga, I'd started using C++ a little, but Windows was ALL C++.
The windev email list and codeproject.com are what made me the windows developer I am today.
By now, everyone in ClairCom knew we were going to die. Hung around until they shut the billing system down. It was just me and a DBA turning it off. I have it's last CDR.
2001 - Cubscouts
Oh sure, why not sign up for cub scouts? My son will have fun.
Yeah, it's an evening of entertainment you have to plan out EVERY week. For years. But I have some deeep friendships from that that would help me survive my future divorce.
Carissa becomes a teenager / Curt returns My home life was beautiful up until Carissa called up her bio-Dad. I'll spare you the details.
2002 - ClairCom is done
During these boring ass days (at work), I learned Windows OS and continued with Ditty - C++ on Win32 API. Used my keyboard and a Soundblaster Live/Audigy PC synth on a card:
Wifi and laptops started to become a thing. A thing I liked.
Started dinking around with a personal website, too.
HTML - sheesh - messy. Good thing there's perl.
Javascript - ooo I can make blinky things. Sheesh.
When there were less than 20 ClairCom employees, I finally got booted.
Layoff package paid for a new roof and more !
A company died. Kinda sad. Kinda cool. Weird experience.
2003 - Western Wireless
2002 was =not= a good year for a job search.
Had fun with the kids tho - plenty of swimming.
Finally found Western Wireless. Had to be a contractor.
Commute to Factoria was UTTER HELL. I'll never work at Microsoft. (Did you hear that, recruiters !!)
Learned Oracle 9 and cell phones proper.
BIG billing systems, QualComm BREW, and intro to what AmDocs is.
Nice place. But as soon as I got used to it I found a gig offering me a =much= higher rate... And that's what being a contractor is all about.
2004 - Tideworks
Contract again. Oracle Forms and PL/SQL
Company moving the big shipping containers between ship, train, and truck.
Huge inventory system needing to add billing capabilities.
Never wanted to get good at forms. But I did. Now that it's outdated. Does so much at the outset. Yet is so painful when it comes to polishing the app.
Got a lot more into the whole schedule driven thing. That's the life of a programmer... Deadlines and code versioning and standards, oh MY...
Outsourcing had completed becoming a thing. I thought about trying some other job, especially between contracts.
But NOPE writing code will always ROCK!
Contract lasted a year and I was looking again. But that was no longer scary. Just frustrating. I've learned so much at home that I can't put on my resume. I could fill so many c++ jobs, but, nope, no work experience.
2005 - Cingular / AT&T
Sweet commute. 15 minutes door to desk.
Contractor again. =4= gigs seperated by layoffs.
Ugh. Contrator-ness is against my religion. But I have no choice.
But layoffs in the middle of summer are wonderful.
And, eh, it's a living :)
Now I'm in front of the billing. Mediation where everything gets collected from everywhere in prep for billing, fraud, usage analysis, etc.
gig #1) Blue To Orange Conversion
moving subscriber data out of the old AT&T billing systems into the new Cingular ones. Just a bit of PL/SQL and Perl.
gig #2) Mediation
Learned CVS and got to try to get all the Mediation source code into one repository. Not so fun. But, eh, useful. Lots of diff'ing perl code. Did MMS and IM code changes and reporting Oracle 11 now? Not much better than 8 if you ask me... (I'm obviously not a DBA.)
gig #3) Test env and production deployments
All dev outsourced. Just some perl,PL/SQL for the test envs, writing boring ass SISs, and covering for the employees who always go on vacation.
gig #4) Gizmo - writing front end website stuff now !
Finally some coding again! And a new learning curve. The Javascript, JQuery, and CSS on pianocheetah.com come in handy nowww. Web front ends are kinda silly. But I'm cool with em.
end of gigs - hired on fiiinally. Finally I'm done with the job descriptions - whew !!
2009 - Piano lessons and robotics and cell phones
All this stuff happened in parallel with AT&T:
Kids are getting older and I've finally got TIME for me again...
Started piano lessons.
Should have a long time ago. Learning songs takes a LOT less time.
New gear:
Yamaha CP-33 (nice weighted piano)
EdiRol PCR-800 (nice unweighted keys and sliders and pedals and knobs and)
Robotics
Connor never got into robotics club at high school, but I sure did. Robotic actuators and sensors. Embedded OS (usually Linux based) does it's thing. Building out complex actuators (arms, etc). Learning how to teach a high school kid. Quit after 4 years. Other Dads wanted in, Connor graduated 2 years ago. Will go back when Davin hits middle school.
Android
My son conned me into getting a smart phone. I've lived voice cell phones and they're pretty boring. As a Dad, I did NOT wanna be bugged by my wife n kids. I =just= got some peace. I'm not giving it up.
But post iphone, I started noticing Android.
Umm, that's an OS right there. That's a robust OS right there. That's a Linux OS with a full GUI that I can write code for... Oh java? Phhh. No way.
Then I get my son one. And I try writing a little code for it. Welp, another OS for Steve. Android is a thing. Got a Nexus10 tablet. Seems too small for notation. But I'm slowly gonna get PianoCheetah on Android.
Ditty grows up
Ditty => PianoCheater => PianoCheetah
It's no longer a little thing. It does a LOT.
Guitar Hero gave me some ideas as far as notation.
Took a stab at standard notation and decided against it.
There are still hardly any other users, but maybe some day...
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