Self Portrait

At the Race, Dubai 2004

It's not my car.

For many years, I was a telecomm engineer. I lived and worked all over the world.

I put satellite communications equipment on planes trains and automobiles; I installed equipment in the White House and the Pentagon and designed stuff for the folks at Fort Meade. My name is on patents for the satellite telephone system used by the Taliban and Osama bin Laden.

I was paid to play in private jets, high speed chase boats, railroad locomotives and over-the-road trucks. They paid me to fly over Juneau Alaska in a float plane and over Utah’s canyon lands in a helicopter. I flew over the great salt lake and Colorado Rockies in the cockpit of a Lear. I drove from Tuscan to Tucumcari and Tehachapi to Tonopah (and from Berlin to Paris. And Melbourne to Brisbane). I drove jeeps over sand dunes in the Arabian Desert. It was a magic carpet ride.

Told differently, I was away from home 50 weeks a year, working 60 – 80 hours a week and living in hotels. I got close to a lot of really nice places with little time to see them.

Either way, I loved what I did but came to dislike the folks I did it for so we parted company . I’m whittling away at my savings and bored out of my mind. That’s still a better than working for thieves, even thieves with magic carpet rides.

Thank you very much Rupert, changing the name does not protect the innocent, or hide the guilty.

This blog is an attempt to put it all in some perspective and help me decide what I want to be when I grow up.

I’m too old to become a postal employee.