About Me

Current Status

Currently, I work as the network administrator at St. Charles Medical Center in Bend, Oregon. I'm in charge of their network infrastructure - hubs and routers and stuff like that. This is the best job I've ever had - they treat me right.

Current hobbies include playing with Lego, the Macintosh computer games Heroes III and the Exile series, and building a web site (this one). Anna and I also make the occasional batch of beer, wine, and liquers.

I read a lot of science fiction - favorite authors include Larry Niven, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Theodore Sturgeon. I keep trying newer authors and can't seem to find anyone as consistently entertaining, although C. J. Cherryh is a notable exception. Send me your suggestions and I'll have a look. Update: James Alan Gardner. Julie Czerneda.

Just discovered Neil Stephenson's Snow Crash. Go read it right now, then go get his The Diamond Age. Great stuff - I want more! Update: Cryptonomicon and Zodiac.

Oh yeah, almost forgot - J. Neil Schulman's Kings Of The High Frontier. Click on this link right now and then buy the book if you like the free sample - it's a great yarn about private enterprise getting into space. Which segues nicely into the next topic.

I belong to the Oregon L5 Society, a local chapter of the National Space Society. Oregon L5 is a very small but dedicated band of space enthusiasts working towards creating a spacefaring society.

Brief History

My memory is notoriously unreliable, so take the following with a grain of salt.

• 1963 Born in Eugene, Oregon, while parents were attending the University of Oregon.
• 196? - My father, Morris Weathers, joins the Air Force after graduating from U of O.
• 1969 Moved to England (small base called High Wycombe Air Force Station, now turned into a high school). Clear memory of watching first moon landing on TV. First memories of Lego, the toy that made me the man I am today.
• 1972 - Moved to Croughton AFB. Fond memories of the computer room where Dad used to work on the big Univac mainframes for the 2130th Comm Squadron. Picked up my fascination with computers here.
• 1976 Moved to Gunter Air Force Station in Montgomery, Alabama. Talk about a foreign country. Attended Houston Hills Junior High School, where I was amazed to discover books in the library that optimistically predicted we might land on the moon by 1975.
• 1979 - Moved to Brussels, Belgium. Attended Brussels American High School. Rediscovered computers on the Interdata 7/16 and Apple II. Learned to program in BASIC and found that computers were what I was born to do.
• 1980 - Lego Technica (later renamed Technic) introduced. I had never really given it up, but Lego Technic started my Lego renaissance.
• 1981 - Graduated, went to University of Oregon to get a computer science degree. Terrible grades. College didn't agree with me. Bought an Atari 800 and became a pretty good BASIC hacker.
• 1984 - Dropped out, went to live with parents in San Bernardino, CA. Went to work in ComputerLand Store #38. Signed a non-disclosure agreement and learned about the Macintosh. Wow! What a machine. Epiphany. Sold the Atari and bought a Mac right away.
• 1986 - Went back to U of O to make another stab at it. Went to work for Computer Solutions in Eugene. Began an upgrade spiral that ended us up with a Mac SE/30.
• 1987 - Met Anna, dropped out, and married her before someone else did. Perhaps I'll finish the degree some day.
• 1989 - Computer Solutions closes.
• 1990 - Moved to Portland and began working for Alpha Computers. Learned Novell NetWare and networking.
• 1991 - Got tired of being mistreated and went to work for Metro. Much better.
• 1994 - Bought a house. I start to notice the Internet and the World Wide Web. Pumpkin comes to live with us, and a good thing too - the house has mice. Now we have a Quadra 605.
• 1995 - Anna undergoes surgery to remove basketball-sized ovaries. Comes out of it just fine, but not an experience we are eager to repeat.
• 1997 - I discover I have Type II diabetes. Fortunately I can control it by following the Zone Diet. Pike comes to live with us. We own a PowerBase 200 Mac clone.
• 1998 - Sold the car. It feels great! It's amazing how much stress owning a car causes you. Built this web site.
• 1999 - David helped me reroof the garage. Upgraded to an iMac - the lime flavor.
• 2000 - Management upheaval at Metro leads to me taking a job at St. Charles Medical Center in Bend. Great job!