Speaking of favorite things, I just bought a Leatherman tool yesterday. Coolest pocketknife-type-thing I've ever seen! Maybe I'll put an ad on this page for them too one of these days. BTW Target has them on sale right now.

Well graduation kinda like happened but didn't happen, ya know? I went to the ceremony and all, and they gave me a marble slab with a little brass replica of a diploma on it, and got lots of cards and gifts from people (which I still have to do thank-you notes for), and then found out I still needed one more course. So this semester I'm taking EEE480, Feedback Systems.

But one other thing that happened before I found out about that is that I got a full time job at Acoustic Imaging here in Phoenix. So I is an engineer now! Yay! I do OS/2 software for their next-generation ultrasound machine under development right now. They sent me to Florida a couple weeks ago for an IBM training class on OS/2 device drivers, and now it's time to start working miracles I guess. Seems like everybody wants that out of me lately. Device drivers for the displays, and some microcontroller code, etc. I'm learning a lot, but not fast enough to keep up with all that needs to be done, let alone all I want to do. I've hardly had hobby time lately, which is why it's been so long since this page had an update.

As for Electron Cloud moving, by the way, it probably will happen in May now. Or something like that. Knock on wood, I will graduate this semester. My Linux machine at home is running just fine and dandy now, so if I can get a full-time or nearly full-time SLIP or PPP thing going, preferably with my own domain name, I can transfer it from the ASU account. Plans include much more stuff. I'm in the process of getting a scanner for one thing, which is a luxury I've missed since I'm not working at ASU anymore. I intend to put lots of ham gear manuals online for stuff I can come up with manuals for. I'm always losing them myself, and I can't be the only one who has that problem. :-) For an example of what they'll probably look like check out the instructions for the SS-32 PL board in the Ham category. And if I can get the Linux machine to do the web, and do email, the next step will be to try and start a packet/internet gateway. I know it's been done, but I'd still be awful proud to have my very own gateway blinking away here in the back room - all 4 x 6 feet of it! :-) Which reminds me, you'll soon be able to take a virtual tour of my place here on the Electron Cloud, just as soon as I get that scanner and get a backed-up batch of film developed. And I want to start some commercial thing of one kind or another to help finance all this happy stuff, probably online shopping although if I can think of anything cooler that would be great.

My friend Peter is doing great with his The Gate BBS (Arizona's best online Doom, Heretic and now Descent!) and there's talk of it becoming an Internet provider as well, so maybe I'll move EC there instead of my place, we'll see. I'm starting to get into Descent. Got a new joystick, the Logitech Wingman Extreme, with its Thrustmaster-like 4 buttons and hat and better-than-Thrustmaster ergonomics. It's the toy to have for Descent! And now I can play online against several other people at once! Yay! The reason there's a Linux machine now, is that I dedicated my old 386/33 to that, and got a new 486DX4/100, which kicks butt as well for Descent. Having some money for a change, thanks to this job, has put me in hog heaven computing wise.

Well I'm running out of schtuff to blab about, so CYA next time I get around to writing one of these. Hopefully sooner than last time... :-)
Shawn T. Rutledge

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