Hi! I'm Joe and this is my test website.

I graduated from University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) with a degree in math. I worked my way through college at various jobs, warehouse person, working in data services for the county, an operator for UTAs main frame, and finally as a programmer. After that I wanted to do software

Family

I have two great kids, who friends have described as "legit". That means out of my house, off of my dime, and doing well on their own. Ones an Engineer and one's a Registered Dietitian, both married. I'm incredibly proud of them! I was a single Dad, raised them since they were 3 and 7. I didn't mess them up, at least to bad. I did the best I could and I am very thankful to their Aunt Amy and Uncle Rex for the help they gave.

Work

After college, I had a short stint working with an actuary at an Insurance company, I was hired as a software engineer at LTV...which later became Loral...which later became Lockheed Martin. I did have a 5 year run at ElectroCom, a company that built mail sorting machines.

While at Lockheed, I was mostly a Software Engineer, some time as a Test Engineer, some other time as a Systems Engineer, and a while as an Electrical Engineer. Also, I worked in the process group as a Test Engineer. I worked on a lot of different projects.

I was VERY shy and had a weird sense of humor, which I'm sure held be back. I was once told "the workplace is not the place for humor". While in the process group I wrote up a new process that no one in the group liked, but seem most fitting for a lot of the projects I'd worked on. It was the POOMA process...The "Pull Out Of My Ass" process. Basically, the process for winging it. At least we had a process for winging it.

I've retired now, and IT IS GREAT! I recommend retirement to anyone who can retire and not have to live under a bridge the rest of their lives.

Me and FIRST

Well before I retired, I started working with a robotics team, which I didn't know was a thing. It was FIRST Robotics team 704. My kids were out of the house and I wanted to make sure my life didn't revolve around work. That year, team 704 won a regional robotics event and we went to the World Championship in the Georgia Dome. It was an incredible experience. I went on to start working with FIRST Lego League teams and later with FIRST Tech Challenge teams. They needed volunteers at events, so I started volunteering at events. Anytime someone asked for help or a volunteer, I would say sure.

After a while I was asked if I wanted to be an FTAA at an event, I had no idea what that was but I said sure! The next year, they asked if I wanted to be an FTA, FIRST Technical Advisor (I had learned what FTAA was) and I said sure! Basically, FTAs are there to make sure the competition, competition field, everything technical works.

That same year, I was asked if I wanted to help more teams by becoming a FIRST Senior Mentor (FSM) and, of course, I said sure. So, I started supporting more teams, growing FIRST, and finding volunteers.

What I'm doing here

Since retiring, I'm doing more and more learning about various things. Web development for one. I'm just playing around with its code but the information here is valid.

I'm also learning about Artificial Intelligence.