A Bit About Me

I'm a little weird, like my dad.  My dad was always a tinkerer; he was always trying out new ideas and building new things.  His medium was cedar, and he was great at it.

Wearing the "hat of shame" at work
(quite years ago)

I think a bit of that rubbed off on me.  I have always looked for problems to solve with creative solutions.

Doodles of my software flow.

Computers

I found computers in grade 8 when they were just being released to the public in 1977.  I managed to save up for one and knew immediately what I wanted to do - write code!

TRS-80 Model I, just like I had.  4K of memory.  Cassette tape storage. 
Not a great time for computing...

Not Ready Yet

I was headed for college in Chilliwack, but I ended up destroying a friend's car and had to make some money to pay for it.  I ended up doing some crazy things for the next few years: pretending to be a high school student in a different town (to join the basketball team), running a giant "steam roller", laying railway track in a 7km tunnel through a mountain, working at a ski hill (Sunshine Village), and working at the Expo '86 Ontario Pavillion.  A wild few years.

Having loved electronics in high school and being a little rudderless, I got my diploma at BCIT and found another love. And writing code works with electronics, too!

Circuit design idea for model trains.
I never built it.

But I needed to pay the bills before becoming an electrical engineer.  So after graduation, I grabbed an easy job for the time being; I was a "lab attendant" at SFU.  My job was to sit in a computer lab and  answer questions.  I loved it, and I loved teaching people how to "do stuff".  Then I stayed for 35 years.

A "Real" Job - SFU

Home for me, 500 Granville Street.

SFU was a very open place, allowing me to learn all the technology I could want.  Aside from learning how the crazy world of academia worked, I learned about databases, creating web sites, and eventually designing games.  It was so much fun I can remember thinking at about the 10 year mark: "I haven't had more than 10 bad days since I started here."

Games

Here are some games I designed while learning.  Note - NONE WERE COMPLETED!

Cargo game with a crane

"Game Jam" game: Splash-O-Matic

Tank battle game with a map editor.

MBA and Teaching

I got the opportunity to take an MBA in 2017.  On one hand, I thought "who cares about business"?  On the other hand it was a chance to face my demons of public speaking. I was never comfortable teaching (which I had done on and off over the years).

The MBA was a "life changer" - a gateway to my new career of teaching.  This is why I'm here taking the PIDP program.

My MBA buddies in the front row
(four on the right, from right to left: Odin, Su, David, and Glenn.  Friends for life.)

3D Printing and Laser Cutting

Finally, to loop back to the tinkering - having learned how to do 3d modelling, I can now design things to print and make in the real world.  I am forever "tinkering" with playing card designs, printing 3d figures for games, and just solving new "problems". 

I made a card game for playing darts:

Cards 'n' Darts game.  I made everything but the darts.
It made darts fun again and I plan to sell it commercially.

And I made a laser cut cribbage board and 3d printed pegs for a birthday present:

F1 Cribbage.  Track is of circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal.

Yup, I admit it.  I'm a little weird.  Thanks for reading. 

What happened to me?