Chapter 1 Lab

The new semester has started and I have to write another about me profile. This one has a twist though, I have to write it as a blog entry. I have always stayed away from blogs, generally because I find most of them incredibly boring, and this one will probably be no exception, but since it is an assignment here goes.

Personal Background

I am a lifelong resident of Indianapolis, Indiana. I grew up on the south side of town and went to Southport High School, where I graduated in 1971. I joined the Air Force after high school and served most of my time near Madrid Spain. I stayed single until I was in my forties and then married a wonderful woman who I am still happily married to. I never had any children of my own, but I do have four stepchildren, three of which I helped raise, and four grandsons. I am an atheist and a member of the Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Hendricks County.

Career Background

Most of my adult life has been working in aviation although I never panned it that way. While I was in school the first time I took a job with a company called General Aviation Electronics, GENAV for short. I worked there for about 3 years as a line technician performing final test and repair on NAV/COMMS. I then went to work for a comapny called Combs Gates located at Indianapolis Int’l Airport. This was a job as an avionics technician. It seemed like a decent enough job so I decided to try it for awhile. Little did I know I would stay there 25 years. Probably one of the biggest changes to happen to me was after 25 years and 3 corporation changes I was let go do to downsizing in 2004. It is quite a shock to the system to find yourself unemployed after working at the same place for 25 years. I am now employed for a small instrument shop called INAir Aviation on the west side of town. So after being laid off and swearing to myself I would never work in aviation again, I am working in aviation.

Education Background

After being discharged from the Air Force I decided that hard labor was not what I was cut out for, and even though I had never had any dreams or desires to go to college I found myself enrolled at IUPUI in the EET program. This was in 1976, the ET building would not open for another year so my classes were at the 38th street campus across the street from the fairgrounds. I went to school for about 3 years on the GI bill until I finally landed my first really good job. I had almost competed my associates degree, I kept putting off English Comp, and had about half of the credits towards my BS when I decided to take a short break from school. Little did I know that short break would last 25 years. At first I really panned on going back and completing my education but life just got in the way, and I just kept putting it off, besides as far a my job was concerned it wouldn’t have helped me. Suddenly I found myself back in the job market and it was hard to find anything close to what I was used to without a degree of some kind. Since Bombardier, my former employer was a Canadian company I fell under the Trade Agreement Act, and found out that I could get my education paid for. Not only that but they would pay me unemployment while I was in school. Never one to pass up a good thing I took them up on the offer and went back to school at IUPUI. I received my BS in ECET December of 2006. So why am I writing this blog as school assignment you may ask, I found out I liked going to school. Now I am back enrolled in CIT certificate program. I haven’t decided whether to go on for another degree yet but I may.

Hobbies and Interests

I enjoy working with computers, building and maintaining them, programming them, playing games on them, surfing the net on them, when I am not on the computer acting nerdy, I enjoy watching movies. Although I enjoy most genres of movies my favorites are cheesy B sci-fi’s. You know the ones made in the 50’s and 60’s with giant critters created by a nuclear bomb blast in the desert. I also enjoy kung fu and samurai movies and have even gotten my wife interested in watching them. Another thing I enjoy is traveling and discovering new places. We don’t even have to go far. One our favorite trips involves choosing a destination and then trying to drive there without using any divided highways. You would be amazed at some the things you come across in small town America. Finally my last interest I will list is music. I have always wished that I could be a musician. To be able to play the guitar or sing, to me that would be great, but I never had the patience to learn to play and instrument, and my bucket that I tried to carry a tune in had the bottom rusted out, so I did the next best thing. I married a musician. My favorite type of music has mellowed over the years, from my High School days of listening to Black Sabbath, Hendrix and The Doors, I am now more into John Gorka, Cheryl Wheeler, and Ellis Paul, but every once in a while I will still put on Hellbound Train and turn the volume up to 11.

So this is the end of this first blog entry. I hope if you have read down to here you are not completely bored out of your mind. Thanks for reading and leave a comment, ask a question, make fun of me, or any thing else, be my guest.