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Introduce Yourself
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Topic starter
2021-05-19 1:03 am
Hello all. By way of introduction and background, I was a research technician for 32 years and retired in ’98. My wife and I were enjoying life until she became afflicted with cancer and succumbed five years ago this month. She left both our old cat and me unsupervised. The cat and I are moving forward at our own pace, slowly. The cat’s interests are primarily eating, sleeping, and petitioning me to scratch her head. My interests include eating (good barbeque) and sleeping, along with a long-time woodworking hobby and whatever else strikes my fancy. Currently, I am joining with Bill Gates. He and Melinda are splitting up after a long relationship while I am attempting to divorce Windows after all these years. I have begun to feel that an ever-increasing number of important options and choices are being denied by Microsoft. That has led me to Linux, which is a whole new world for me. That in turn sparked my interest in Raspberry Pis and the Pico controller.
So, here I am to learn from you folks who have similar technological pastimes. I have found that I learn more by listening rather than talking. Therefore, I’ll be auditing more than actively participating. Thanks for allowing me the opportunity to “sit in”.
tellurian
2021-05-19 11:39 am
Welcome to the forum! Enjoy your "sitting in" but be sure to chime in with questions from time to time and let us know how you are progressing.
Wow, retired since 98! That's longer than a lot of our members have even been in the work force and longer than some have even been on the face of the earth.
Sad to hear about your wife, but know that you and the cat have managed to behave yourselves and stay out of trouble.
SteveG
Topic starter
2021-05-19 1:52 pm
Thanks for the welcome, Steve.
My employer, Borg-Warner, was “acquired” by General Electric in a hostile takeover. GE methodically shut down all the research and development facilities. To their credit, GE provided retirement with benefits for the technical staff who were at least 55 years old and had 30 or more years of service. Needless to say, my 55th birthday was a happy one. Now, I do my best to ignore birthdays.
It’s time to for me to devote more time to learning Linux and remembering those bash commands. Also, to attempt to decipher that, new to me, MicoPython language.
One thing that I long-ago learned is that the world has an abundant supply of interesting concepts to explore.
tellurian
2021-05-20 1:04 am
@tellurian I think you are making the right move. It took me a couple of tries to finally get away from Windows. I still have a Windows box to run a couple of programs I use for development that do not run on linux. I think with your background you will make steady progress and should encounter less frustration than many of us had to deal with.
The pico is new so your getting on the ground floor with that. I don't really know python. I went through a couple of books and it is a fun and powerful language. C is what I know and has historically been a main stream language for programming microcontrolers so I'm sticking with that until I have to move on.
There is always so much to learn in this hobby so I try to pick and choose my topics wisely. Welcome to the forum and let us know what your working on.
I am noweare.
Mark Bolton reacted
2021-08-04 2:49 am
Sorry for your loss Tellurian. It must be quite the challenge.
I have been using Linux for quite some time now. Windows has just become steadily become more horrible and I lost my patience with it round about Windows 8. Linux has become steadily better but still has downtime for fiddly silly bugs. I feel at home with Linux.