Welcome to those who are coming here for the first time, and welcome back, all the rest of you. Here you will find my online resume, and a few things that don't fit on my other two personal sites.
A little biographical information for you and the 'bots. Born on October 26, 1955 in upstate New York, through no fault (or virtue) of my own, I now find myself a middle aged man with a large family.
I am grateful to the Lord for this. I have a loving wife, and eight great kids. Yes, eight. I love doing that to people. I take seriously the Lord's command, "Be fruitful. and multiply." We educate our children at home. I didn't mean to become a radical; I'm just lucky, I guess.
In 1980 I had graduated with an Art degree from Troy State University. By 1993 I was a fairly competent jeweler, but that was pretty much the only skill I had. I was, however, playing around with a little Macintosh SE, creating price lists and marketing materials with MacPaint.
We've been living in the extreme northwestern corner of North Carolina (the proverbial "high country") for the last decade plus. I came here in June of '93 after a 12 year career, if you could call it that, as a jeweler/goldsmith in the Augusta, Georgia area. I was following one of my clients who was going to open up a shop in Blowing Rock, and received an abrupt lesson in economics and the precarious condition of a new business. By October, it became obvious that I needed to find something else to do.
In short, I ended up with no job and two house payments. I quickly discovered I had other talents. I began writing for local papers, and expanded on my graphic talents with typesetting work. Then, thanks be to Al Gore, the Internet happened. A technically brilliant friend and I partnered on a web services venture. He provided the geeky stuff, I made it pretty. As time passed, we've moved in different directions (he moved north, to the DC area), though we still collaborate, and I began to learn more and more of the technical side.
In 1998, I began Lost Province Productions, and began hosting my own sites. I continually climb a learning curve (I have the calluses to prove it!), trying to meet the needs of my various clients. Now I'm able to do very high-tech things in a very rural setting. I've found that I'm able to do almost anything, given a little time to prepare and research. That attitude is important in the fast-moving world of the Internet, where technologies are invented and re-invented almost daily.
Those of you my age might remember the Lone Ranger. It's the Friday episode, and L.R. and Tonto are surrounded by thousands of upset Native Americans in a blind ravine. They're down to two bullets each, and then another thousand Indians show up just as the program ends. On Monday, you know how the show begins: "...after escaping from the Indians, the Lone Ranger and his faithful sidekick head for town..." In other words, the writers just gave up and started over. That's how it feels, in the summer of 2004. We're back down to one house, and starting to see a bit of income, but I have no idea how we made it, except that God was good to us, and kept us one day at a time.
I've found that I can learn, adapt and flourish, (thanks in part, to the Macintosh and Apple computers). God willing I'll continue this process in the next half-century.