I have been visiting this site for a while as a guest and recently decided to join. I take every opportunity to learn what I can, not just about IT, but the world and the people that make it tick.

I started my love of computers with my first computer, a Timex-Sinclair, learning to program in basic within the constraints of the 4K of memory that system had. I soon moved up to a Commodore 64. My next purchase was a 64K Trash-80. Within a few months I had upgraded that system to 128K of ram and added 2 Tandon 720K floppy drives. Hard to imagine but that system with 4 floppy drives was the envy of all my nerd friends.

Wanting to find a use for my C64 I started my first BBS complete with 3 floppy drives and a blazingly fast 300 baud modem.

I quickly learned that computers came in two flavors - protoype or obsolete and any computer that I could purchase was obsolete.

I had studied electronics on my own, but woke up one day and decided that I wanted to really understand how computers worked on a hardware level. I changed my schedule at work, took out a student loan and went back to school so that I could satisfy that urge. After graduation I took a job in the video gaming industry because it gave me the opportunity to do circuit level board repair. I repaired pinball machines, video poker and keno machines, ATM's Pay telephones, and arcade games. After a year I decided that I had accomplished my goals and went back to work in the IT industry.

I spent a few years as a Security officer for a government agency and have since expanded my duties which has caused me to move a little further from the security field than I have liked.

My current interest is computer forensics and I have taken a couple of SANS coarses, worked with a forensic investigator with the Department of Justice and have been lucky enough to do some forensic investigations on my own. One case actually has gone to a hearing in a child pornography case and my testimony stood up to the defense case and we won. That case was then turned over to the FBI who is pursuing further charges. This experience has only increased my urge to further my fornesic skills and I am now working at getting the funding together to attend the Encase training courses.

I just want to understand how everything works. A lofty goal, but I make progress each and every day. If I learn one new thing, make one new discovery each day, I get one step closer to my goal.

Nice meeting all of you.