Introduction

Well, I geuss its about time I got started here....

I'm a techno geek, so I suppose this blog will be mainly tech/computer oriented, although I may occasionally toss in an odd thing or two about other subjects.

Ok, so a little bit about me and my background...

Science was always my favorite subject in school, and I've loved techno toys ever since I can remember. I've always liked tearing stuff apart to figure out how it worked. My family never had much though, so tech toys were very rare. I can remember when we finally got an Atari video game, it was basically just variations on 'Pong', and was quite outdated, but it was all we had. We couldn't afford a computer, though I would have died to have one as a teen. I can remember spending hours in Radio Shack ogling all the tech stuff, wishing I could get one of those early Tandy TRS-80 computers....

So it was really no surprise to me or anyone else when I joined the Navy in '81 and was selected for the Nuclear Power Program. A Nuclear Power Plant - The ULTIMATE Tech Toy! But sadly, that dream was not to be. After waiting 11 months for my class seat, I was disqualified the day I reported for my physical. Seems they didn't like the school I graduated from - Porterville Adult School. They required a diploma from a 'regular' high school and would not budge on the issue. So I ended up 'settling' for the Advanced Electronics Program. In the six years I spent as a Navy Electronics Tech, I still never got that computer I longed for so bad. Computers were quite expensive and I just was not good at managing money. My family never had money, so I never really learned to manage it wisely, I just frittered it away.

I finally got my first computer in '97 when a friend brought over this huge box that his uncle had given him. In it was a 25Mhz 486-DX2 based IBM PS-1 that would not boot up. I took it to a local computer shop and they put DOS 6.2 on it for me. I played around with some DOS based games until a friend gave me his Windows 95 Disk so I could have a 'real' operating system. I managed to get a Modem for it so I could go online, and I've been 'hooked' on the Internet ever since. I met my wife, Joy on the Internet and we have been happily married for over six years now. I really don't know what I would do without her - she puts the joy in my life, quite literally.

Eventually I saved enough to get a new Biostar motherboard, a Trident 4 MB video card and a P120 processor, so I could actually play some of the games I wanted - like Lords of the Realm, Outpost, Warcraft and Starcraft, my all time favorite. I had all this stuff crammed into the old IBM desktop case, and since none of it 'fit' it was just sort of hanging out everywhere. I called it my Frankenputer. Finally I broke down and got a mid-tower case for it all and it became a 'normal' computer. I've gradually upgraded one piece at a time, so none of the original remains. I do still have the old soundblaster ISA card in another computer, though.

In the meantime, in August of 2000, I went to work for a large Biotech company, Beckman Coulter, that has a circuit board manufacturing facility here in town - finally making a decent wage for a change, and doing what I love most, testing and repairing electronic circuit boards. There's nothing I like more than figuring out why something doesn't work, and then fixing it so it does.

Since my wife has built an extensive personal website, I decided two years ago for her birthday I would give her what she needed most - her own Domain. She became the proud owner of "forbiddenjoy.com" and I put a web server on her computer so she can easily manage the files without having to deal with FTP and hosting hassles. Since it is so much easier to work with now, her site has grown signifigantly - over 300MB of files now. She is very proud of it, and rightly so. You can visit it here

After a few months I thought it might be a good idea to build my own website, since I do a little bit of side business working on computers, doing repairs, upgrades and spyware/virus removal. I figured it might be a good idea to have a web presence and so I became "computers.forbiddenjoy.com". When it came time for the domain renewal, I decided to get my own domain name instead of piggybacking on hers. I became "forbiddenPC.com" You can see my website here

Anyway, thats my story and I'm sticking to it.