Five Answers

[mdlbear]

From figmo:

1. If you had to do something other than design and/or program software for a living, what would you be doing?
   Writing, genre unspecified. So far I've written a non-fiction book, some poetry, and a fair number of songs. Unpublished works include some short stories and a couple of first chapters that never went anywhere -- I'd probably never make it as a fiction writer, but could probably manage to eke out a living as a pundit. I might even resurrect my old kids' website; with ads it could probably be moderately profitable, but it would take more than the 1-2 hours a day I was putting into it in the mid-'90s.
   
   
2. When did you first start playing guitar?
   answered here (#5) -- care to play again? (basically 1960 give-or-take a year).
   
   
3. How did you avoid getting sent to Vietnam?
   First I went to college, then I won the lottery. My birthday was late enough in the draw that I didn't get called. I had tried to file as a CO but the draft board didn't allow it; my brother had an easier time three years later after I'd softened them up some.
   
   
4. What would be your Job From Hell?
   I've had most of the components, but luckily not all at once: boss who sets impossible schedules and won't listen to anything that might change his mind, a company that requires everyone, including the engineers, to be at their desks at 8am sharp, upper management who scheme behind the employees backs, parent companies that micromanage their subsidiaries from across the Pacific, parent companies intent on running the subsidiary into the ground because that's the quickest way to make money out of it, stock options underwater from day 1, poisonous office politics, stupid coworkers, smart but wrong coworkers who won't accept corrections, boring, meaningless projects that never go anywhere, acres of cubicles with noisy marketing droids next door, ...
   
   I'm not even going to mention, except in passing, the kinds of job that I'm completely unsuited for: physical labor, assembly-line work, anything involving telephones, or anything that involves interacting with customers, vendors, or, in general, large numbers of people I don't know.
   
   I really like my present job -- software research in a little lab owned by a big company that understands what they have well enough not to mess with it. A big company, in fact, that consistently wins prizes for its environmental and social responsibility, and makes real products that mostly go to small businesses and workgroups.
   
   
5. What do you want your life to be like ten years from now?
   Well, I'd like to be comfortably retired, with enough money to travel occasionally and to support an enjoyable but not very lucrative writing hobby. Perform the occasional coffeehouse gig. Not likely, of course. I'll settle for having a job and all of us being in decent health.