user brig <h1>Black Brig</h1> <p>An old tin type of me when I was a younger man back in the late 1800s</p> <h1>Latest News</h1> <p>06-Dec-2006: I'm a Scribe, no longer do I have to bow my head in shame for being a Beatle.</p> <h2>Professional</h2> <p>Not much to say about myself. I'm a System Analyst and Lab Manager for the Dept. of Physics at the University of Idaho. I work with/on FreeBSD, Solaris, HP-UX, MacOSX, and even Winblows (I call it the PopUp OS because of the endless popup bubbles, and heaps of secret software.)</p> <p>Specifically I manage the Micro and Nano Technology Cleanroom, sponsored by the Department of Physics and supported by ONR, NSF, DoD, Keck Foundation, and NSF's EPSCoR program. Until this summer I worked for Dr. Yang Ki Hong at the UofI as an analyst providing support for research databases and customization of the NIST's OOMMF software and an automated build -> post-process -> data reduction system for OOMMF. Currently I work for Dr. David McIlroy, Department of Physics, University of Idaho. </p> <h2>Ahhh, Perl</h2> <p>I don't know what to say on this... Thanks Larry? At the least. I came to Perl through C. I love C but C is a very low level language. Automated Data Processing is an important part of my job, and Perl provides a natural interface between my thoughts and a working algorithm. I can simply get things done quickly. I have never coded a killer app, or learned all the ins and outs but I have written hundreds of scripts that solved immediate problems. </p> <p>I use the Unix userland quite a bit too, and I tend to mix Perl with Makefiles, sed, scp, ssh and other tools. Perl really breaks the paradigm of single purpose tools by being the best at many things. Like I remember Larry describing somewhere, it is like a whole bunch of little globs of magic all melted together into an irridescent jewel that far exceeds the sum of all of the little globs of magic. </p> <h1> Free Unix! </h1> <h2>FreeTime</h2> <p>In my freetime I read history and watch selected movies and play guitar. I can't stand network/cable TV and find both to be numbing to the soul and the intellect. I read RSS feeds for news; I vote every chance I get. </p> <p> <h3>Favorite Movies</h3> <ol> <li>Matrix (there is only one)</li> <li>Logan's Run</li> <li>2001, A Space Odyssey</li> <li>Blackhawk Down</li> <li>Tears of the Sun</li> </ol> </p> <p> <h3>Favorite Books</h3> <ol> <li>Book of Mormon</li> <li>Plutarch's Lives (or whatever you want to call it ;)</li> <li>Collective Electrodynamics, Carver Meade</li> <li>Knuth</li> <li>Next, Michael Crichton (We miss you Mike!)</li> </ol> </p> <h2>Athletics</h2> <p>I bicycle commute year round. My first bike trip was 238 miles up on the Saint Joe River in North Eastern Idaho in 1997. Since then I have ridden across the states of Arizona (June 1999) Utah and Idaho (August 2000). I have also been on many smaller trips. I find bicycling to be an outstanding form of exercise <i>if you work it</i> which doesn't tear your body up like running or jogging. During 2000 I was working at xuma.com in their Las Vegas office and bicycle commuted 36 miles round trip every day. My friends laugh at me when I ride to work in the snow and rain, but I laugh at them when we walk up 3 flights of stairs... </p> <h2>Music</h2> <p>I was once an accomplished hard rock guitarist. I can still play a bit and I do for fun. I have a 1996 Ibanez X Series Guitar which I run through a complicated pedal board and then into a Mashall JCM-900 tube amp and out through a rather largish speaker cabinet. Great way to burn off angst; there is nothing like shaking the walls and windows to relieve stress (IMO :). </p> <h2>Favorite Hobby</h2> <p>Currently my favorite hobby is using various tricks and contrivances to get my boss to let me telecommute from every coffee house, and nook and cranny I can find with Net access. </p> <h2>Community</h2> <p>Spreading the word about personal providence and individual responsibility. </p> <h2>Politics</h2> <p>I talk with people almost everyday and encourage them to demand accountability of their elected officials. I believe that our representatives are not our leaders but are in fact our representatives and that we are the ones that do the leading. I believe that the protections of the Constitution of the United States applies to all human beings world wide at all times no matter what horror they have perpetrated. </p> <h2>PerlMonks</h2> <p>Thanks to all of the people that drove this along before I decided to get involved. I have had the opportunity to tap collective wisdom and I hope all of the votes that I have gotten show that I have contributed to this store of wisdom. Sites like Perl Monks are what make Free Software so wonderful... </p> 2009-03-27 17:16:30 289 579492 583860 28 Moscow, Idaho USA