Well, I started this (and I thank everyone for stepping forward)! I see
that I forgot to mention a bunch of stuff about myself.
I am 55, happily married to a mechanically oriented woman. We met on a
Habitat for Humanity job site. Donita was my boss, being the head of
construction. On the job site she is the boss, but at home, SHE is the
boss! I work half time at the University of Texas doing future planning.
This is interfacing with external folks planning new buildings where we
need to tell them how much A/C, power, net drops, and phones. I also do
computer control of our classrooms, building systems to control all the
A/V equipment, black boards, screens, lights, etc from a touch pad. In the
last room I did we even had a camera that would track the presenter as he
walked around the stage! Pretty cool times!
Electronics has always been second nature to me. I started messing with
electricity when I was 4. Before I could drive (about 14) I had a job
repairing TVs, etc. in a local shop. In the Air Force (7 years) I bypassed
the electronics basics and just went into the systems training. The Air
Force left me in Austin Texas where I hired on with the Chemical
Engineering department at the University of Texas. I was the entire
electronics maintenance and design section of the department. I supported
about 40 facultymembers and 100 grad students. 7 years later I moved to
the Electrical engineering department. I hired on to be the technician on
a 10 year grant to develop a computer architecture that was to be a test
bed for computer architectures. It was a vairable word width, variable
structure machine. It ended up that I designed the interconnection switch
between the processors and memories in addition to being in charge of the
construction and maintenance of the machine.
I spent 2 years in Japan in the early 70's and really liked the
Fairladies, although they were the 240's. Almost bought one there, but I
shipped back to the states before I hasd a chance. It was 2.4L, 6 speed, 3
side draft 2bbl carbs, electric fan, and only 1,100,000 yen! (That was
$3055). I cut my auto teeth on air cooled VWs and ran a shade tree shop
for about 6 years, doing mainly electrical, suspension, A/C and foreign
cars. I charged more than most of the part time grease monkies in the
area, $8/hr! Those were the days!
We live on a 50 acre ranch, with 40 Full blood Boer Goats, 4 cows, a dog
and a cat. I in the process of building a shop building with 1200 sq ft of
shop space, including a 3/4 bath and a small office (to be used for
vehicle maintenance and wood working) and a 900 sq ft 2 bed room
apartment.
Vehicles include 2 67.5 1600's, a '52 Farmall Super C tractor with quite a
few implements and a 97 3/4 ton, Dodge Ram Van.
I have been volunteering with Habitat for Humanity for about 15 years,
leading home constructions, including 3 Jimmy Carter Work Projects. And,
yes, I have met him. In fact, we stayed in the same dorm at Rice about 4
years ago when we built 100 homes in 5 days. It is a bitt unnerving to be
sitting around the TV room talking with a former president!
If I forgot anything please let me know what you want to know!
Peace,
Pat
- Support Habitat for Humanity, A "hand up", not a "hand out" -
Pat Horne, Network Manager, Shop Supervisor/Future planner, CS Dept,
University of Texas, 1 University Station C0500,Austin, Tx. 78712-1188 USA
voice (512)471-9730, fax (512)471-8885, horne@cs.utexas.edu
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