Dave
Activities
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I play the banjo (bluegrass style) ...
A few years ago my wife Barb picked up a banjo in a garage sale,
intending to learn to play it. Well, I beat her to it and started
playing it myself.
Since then, we've gotten involved in Bluegrass, and for a while
were in a Bluegrass band: "Gimme
A Break". Barb played guitar in the band; we also had a
fiddle, a mandolin and a bass. We even did occasional gigs, mostly
square dances where people weren't listening to the band anyway, or
house concerts, where we filled our house with our friends from
church. Gimme A Break has since broken up, but I wouldn't mind
getting involved in a band again.
We often attend concerts, and have been intending to attend a
festival sometime, but can't ever seem to be able to spring a whole
weekend to do that.
Here I am picking with Jack Pearson
up at Pancake Ridge at Mount Hermon's
Summer Camp. That's me with Jack's custom long neck Deering.
Photo
by Nancy Pearson.
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I'm still hoping to edit the video we took during our trip to
Europe into something we can actually watch. One 17 minute video has
been completed. Entitled "My Father's Roots", it shows the
places my grandparents came from and includes some footage of them
from 1985 discussing life in "the old country".
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Here's my latest new toy:
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I used to read a lot of science fiction. I don't seem to have as much
time any more, but a recent book I enjoyed is Vernor Vinge's A
Deepness in the Sky. I also have been impressed with David Brin's Uplift
books, finishing the 2nd trilogy not long ago (relatively speaking).
I have also enjoyed the new prequels to Dune, by Frank
Herbert's son Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.
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I play with computers as an avocation as well as a vocation. It would
appear that I should spend more time learning how to design Web Pages.
Some other interesting Links
In no particular order:
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Wouldn't it be fun to have a Skycar?
They are currently testing the 4-passenger M400 Skycar. "From
your garage to your destination, the M400 Skycar cruises comfortably
at 350+ MPH at 15 miles per gallon. No traffic, no red lights, no
speeding tickets. Just quiet direct transportation from point A to
point B in a fraction of the time. Three dimensional mobility for the
same price as two dimensional mobility." Very cool.
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General Bluegrass
Information, provided by 
,
The Internet Bluegrass Music Magazine.
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The Bluegrass
Radio Network is a great place for some bluegrass music. You
might need to get the latest real audio player, available here.
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I remember many of these
things...
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Engineers should never be left unsupervised
(hint: scroll down to "Hobbies and Other Interests"). Here
is Dave Barry's explanation.
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The infamous
exploding whale. Pretty entertaining.
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Here's a great newsletter
for San Francisco Giants fans.
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The definition and some examples of "Mondegreens"
from San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll.
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Go Bears!
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Calvin
and Hobbes is back! Well, sort of.
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Famous Relatives:
Work and Other Stuff
I spend most of my time playing with computers. Fortunately, they pay
me to do that, so I don't have to work for a living. If you worked at
any of these places at the same time I did, more or less, send me
some E-Mail; it would be
fun to talk about the old days.
Employment History
General Electric, Space Division, Sunnyvale, 1972 - 1978
Space Division purchased by Martin, then in turn by
Lockheed. I'm not sure if the descendant of this group is still around.
GTE Sylvania Systems, Mountain View, 1978 - 1983
There is still a GTE location at the same site but
they don't use the "Sylvania Systems" name any more. I
don't know if they're doing anything like what they used to. There
are definitely some new and different buildings there; there are
houses now covering the space where the buildings I worked in were.
VisiCorp, San Jose, CA, 1983 - 1984
Dest Systems, Milpitas, CA 1984 - 1985
Deceased. This was a spinoff from Dest Corp, which
made scanners. Dest isn't around any more either.
Mead Data Central, Menlo Park and Mountain View, 1985 - 1993
The "West Coast Development Group"
(previously known as "Personal Computer Systems Group") was
terminated in April, 1993 and we all had to look for new jobs. Mead
then sold the whole company. Is there a connection? They are now
known as LEXIS-NEXIS, a
division of Reed Elsevier Inc.
Common Ground Software, (originally No Hands Software),
purchased by Hummingbird Communications Limited, 1993 - 1997
Common Ground for Windows and Mac is great (in my
humble opinion) if you've got newsletters, brochures or other
documents to distribute electronically for which you want to maintain
the appearance and layout. You can put your documents on the Web,
E-Mail them, or put them on your Network Server, and your recipients
can view them exactly as you intend without needing the original
application or fonts. All they need is the free MiniViewer or
Netscape Plugin (which also works with the Microsoft Internet Explorer).
In February of 1998 Hummingbird apparently terminated
further development on Common Ground. They closed the California
development facility, and the last I checked, their web page didn't
mention it any more. Yet another deceased product.
Intuit, 1997 - present
Intuit, of course, does the best-selling and
award-winning Quicken, among other things. I moved to Intuit because
it was time to do something else and fight different battles. I also
wanted to work on something that people actually used. I've
worked in various areas of Quicken beginning with Quicken '98.
Education
Gunn High School,
Palo Alto, CA, 1968. Check out the Alumni
Page.
Foothill College, Los Altos Hills, CA 1970
UC Berkeley, BS
Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, 1972
Stanford University,
MS Electrical Engineering, 1976
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