Retired - formerly an engineer in Silicon Valley high tech R&D. Started coding with APL on a mainframe, started with Assembler with the IBM PC in 1984, then coded in C, finally got around to Basic via Excel VBA in the mid-1990's, but APL spoiled me. I found by then that Excel had begun to be one of the primary means of communicating & interchanging data, charts, diagrams with most engineers and managers who rarely wrote any code themselves. Excel is now convenient for me to download off the web directly to a spreadsheet to analyze macro-economic factors, correlations, sociology data, evaluate relatively complex engineering problems I was always curious about but never had the time. I still miss the real-time, low level programming power though... the autonomous vehicle industry will need more of this than they know by the time things get real about it.

I read science, econ, history -- all academic stuff....haven't read a novel in at least 15 years, watch almost no TV, but sometimes a streaming Netflix movie with my wife, still manage to get around to taking care of all the honey-do's, keep my 1967 250SL in top (fast & furious) running shape in the great Santa Cruz Mountain roads (owned since 1984), started riding a mountain bike a couple years ago.. it's like I was 10 again... just for light trail riding though. Rode 100 miles in a few hours with a friend of mine in Germany a couple years ago... surprised myself even.

Back-ground: Grew up in small San Joaquin Valley town (hot & booooring), moved to Wurzburg Germany at 14, attended a German school, learned colloquial fluent German, then high school (added 3 years of French), graduated from Frankfurt American High School, attended San etech in '71, have a son & daughter, stopped sailing to preserve my marriage, worked at the same place for 38 years (loved every moment of it.. it was a passion ... just shy of sex and sailboat racing on the high seas. Traveled (job related) from China to Europe and back & forth often enough to get tired of airports & the 12 hour endurance contest, even in business & 1st class it get's old fast... not my idea of fun, though working in those locations for long periods and enjoying the different cultures was great... made it worth the flights).

Finally retired when I was 62 .. some VP told me what to do and how to do it one day so I quit on the spot.. nobody had ever once told me what to do or how to do it and I wasn't going to start taking orders now ... never have been a follower type.. Still married to the original. My children, graduated from Univ. of CA (Cal and SB), now also work in high tech in the Valley.. one in software, the other in e-commerce web development; three grandchildren (so far) saved my wife from having to put up with me too much... once a mother always a mother.