Bio: John Christ III

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Bio: John Christ III
19-Nov-2002 -- Susan Pichotta
 
This week, we are pleased to present a bio from an ex-engineer and ex-New Yorker who now spends his time enjoying programming in Clarion and warmer weather. This man has hobbies I can identify with, and food shots our resident Cajun will applaud.
 
Who do you work for?
Myself. A former co-worker (Joe Maples) and I have an informal partnership, and a corporation when clients prefer a corp-to-corp relationship.
 
What do you like best about what you do now?
Variety and freedom. I've telecommuted for the past 10 years and thrive both personally and professionally under those conditions.
 
What has been one of your biggest challenges in using Clarion?
Avoiding getting flamed for posting buggy code on the newsgroups :)
 
What has been one of your biggest challenges in business?
Accepting the bipolar nature of contracting/consulting. Enjoying the giddy times when you have a new exciting contract, and getting through the not so giddy lean times.
 
Sales and marketing. Yuck.
 
Shameless plug: We're currently talking with several potential clients, but at the moment are still available.
 
Do you use any computer languages besides Clarion?
Mostly C/C++ as in Borland C++ Builder, Visual Studio and CodeWarrior for Palm OS. I've also worked a bit in Unix/Linux - C/C++, Perl, shell scripting, etc. I run Linux (Slackware rules!!!) on my home/office server, with IP Masquerade, Samba (file and printer services), sendmail, ftp and ircd.
 
When did you start using Clarion?
Around 1994. At the time Scott Buchanan wanted to develop a Version Control System for Clarion and I was the one who answered his advertisement in the classified section of the St. Pete Times. I'm probably the only person who has ever first learned Clarion from the TXA file perspective.
 
What's the coolest project(s) you've worked on using Clarion?

Habaneros from the back yard. Aren't they cute?

I'm usually partial to what I'm working on at the moment. I get caught up in whatever I'm doing and have trouble tearing myself away.
 
Have you done anything for a living other than software development?
I have a BS in Electrical Engineering and was employed as an EE by Sperry Gyroscope in Lake Success, NY for 15 years. While there I worked in analog & digital circuit analysis and design, including the design and fabrication of two radar simulators for the Spanish Navy.
 
Whenever an opportunity presented itself I'd finagle a way to do some sort of engineering support programming. There is a well known non-linear circuit simulation program called SPICE (well known among electrical engineers anyway) that at the time ran only on mainframe computers. I located a copy of the doctoral dissertation it was based on and coded it for an HP desktop computer in HP's proprietary language HPL. That computer ran at 5 MHz and had a whopping 21K of RAM so I had to swap program segments in from an 8 inch floppy drive. Am I dating myself?
 
Then in 1985 I was assigned to a job where we had to program EPROM circuit cards using a UNIX minicomputer based card tester. The programs were generated on a mainframe computer and dumped to tape, at a cost of $5K per run.

Just out of sight of the camera are the piles of crap that earlier had covered every square inch of my desk.

Not infrequently those tapes were unreadable, so the $5K went down the drain. After observing this, and seeing the essentially unused minicomputer, I did a little investigation and found that the programming languages available for it were FORTRAN and C. I was familiar with FORTRAN, but there were rumblings at the time that "C" was THE up-and-coming language.
 
 
I proposed to management that we move from FORTRAN on the mainframe to C on the minicomputer, and was summarily shot down. I went ahead and did it anyway and a month later the same manager was congratulating "US" on "OUR" decision to do so. You remember moments like that a long time.
 
What are your hobbies/what do you like to do when you're not using Clarion?
Cooking, cleaning, laundry, lawn mowing, driving the kids around - those are hobbies, aren't they?
 
Seriously, I do enjoy cooking, playing with my new digital camera (you can see I've got a lot to learn) and then back to the computer when no one is looking.
 
Married, children, grandchildren, other close family you want to mention?
My wife is a pediatric nurse. We've been married for 21 years, and have 3 children:
 
Ryan, 18, attending the University of Central Florida in Orlando
Colin, 16, junior in high school, "Gymnastics is Life"
Lisa, 13 going on 17, 8th grade, boy crazy.
 
Where were you born?
da Bronx, NY.
 
Where do you live now?
Palm Harbor, Florida.
 
What's interesting about where you live?
After close to 40 years in NY, I enjoy the lack of snow and lack of traffic congestion (I still laugh when they talk about rush hour here.) It's funny how you take palm trees in the front yard (photo near beginning of bio) and alligators in the back for granted after a few years.
 
Have you lived any other interesting places?
Buffalo NY, home of "The Anchor Bar" - birthplace of Buffalo Chicken Wings. www.buffalowings.com
 
I left Buffalo (coincidentally) shortly after the infamous "Blizzard of '77" www.wbuf.noaa.gov/bzpns.htm www.home.earthlink.net/~rjerling/blizzardof77.html
 
Buffalo is "THE" best place for eating variety, just be sure to go during the summer, which is fondly known as "Three months of bad sledding."
 
Which person, from past or present, do you most admire and why?
My Mom and Dad. They are both retired now, and live a couple hundred yards away. My Dad is a Lutheran minister (there really is no such thing as a retired Lutheran minister) and my Mom was a teacher. They are far better parents than I deserved.
 
What is your favorite food?
Thai, Indian, Italian, Spanish, Mexican, Cuban, Greek, Chinese.
Anything with hot sauce or hot peppers.
Anything blackened.
Anything with lots of garlic.
Anything with tomatoes.
Anything with basil.
Anything with cilantro.

Did I mention I like hot sauce?

 
What is your favorite drink?
Dry white wine.
 
What is your favorite type of music?
Somewhat eclectic:
 
70's / 80's rock
Buckwheat Zydeco
Statler Brothers
 
The occasional song my kids try and turn their hopelessly square Dad on to.
 
What is your favorite book?
Anything by H.P. Lovecraft, Kurt Vonnegut or Robert Heinlein.
 
What is your favorite movie?
Forbidden Planet
http://www.forbidden-planet.org/Robby
 
The Day The Earth Stood Still
http://www.dreamerwww.com/tdtess.htm
 
The Matrix
 
Anything else you want to mention?
To answer the question everyone asks:
 
"Yes, I'm aware that my last name is spelled the same as that of a figure central to the story of the New Testament of the Bible. However we pronounce it with a short "i", as in "Christian", which is what the name "Christ" means in German."
 
My thanks to all of you who made it this far :)
 

Florida is known for being hot; this day was exceptionally so.