User:Harkof8

Besides being someone who likes to get information about a subject as fast as I can, I'm interested in stretching myself and where possible writing down what I know about a subject where nothing has been written. Building Wikipedia up is a worthy goal and I'm willing to help if I can.

I'm a semi-retired white gentleman from New Jersey. I've lived here almost all of my life in NJ, I spent a year in Arizona for my job, but have done some traveling. Been to 40 states and 8 foreign countries but I think I going to stay in the states for the rest of my life.

My working life after college consisted of working for 5 companies during my almost 35 years of employment. My first fifteen years was as an Accountant and Financial Analyst; enjoyed most of it until Personal Computers came into my field of view. They started me down a path that I enjoyed far more than my previous endeavors. Not having any fear of computers and understanding them; what they were meant to do gave me a leg up over quite a few of my colleagues.

Becoming a specialist in an area of computing has helped keep me working and gained me more respect than I expected. The area was Document Imaging and Management, which were mutually exclusive in the beginning but over time became inseparable. In addition, I became quite good at what was called Work-Flow but became Business Process Management. To me my only short coming in all of this was that I was a lousy programmer, so I endeavored to learn as much as I could about as many different software packages within the area.

Since being laid off from my last position I've found it difficult to find another. I believe my age (61+) and disability (chronic Rheumatoid Arthritis) have hindered my re-employment, those and the shit economic conditions. Well, it'll be 3 years in March '12; it hasn't been fun. Pretty much given up and put my finances in order, applied for SSDI in the hope that I won't have to kill my retirement funds just to keep living now.

I'm married to Anne, a wonderful very supportive girl, that has put up with me for 32 years. We have a daughter, Emily, she's 25 and working at a part-time job that pays okay; just can't get enough hours to really make enough to move to her own place. Another benefit of the shit economy.

I used to love playing basketball, it was great exercise, the RA has made it painful in the aftermath. Playing still brings a smile to face but hours later I can barely move. Oh well, that's life. Some friends and I meet as often as possible to view the latest SciFi, adventure or fantasy movie. I know -- nerds -- right. Over forty, everyone of us.

I'm an avid reader, from the daily newspaper to the latest best seller, particularly in SciFi, Mystery, an fictionalized history. I like some Biography and Autobiography either in book form or televised. I seek information from the TV as well as entertainment, I like to laught.

On the other side of life, the real world, I'm a political independent mostly because I'm a non-joiner. Not declaring myself Democratic or Republican allows me to not gather blame...they did it or didn't.  In the present, escaping the wrath of the public because inaction or actions that go against real life situations.

I'm a lapsed Catholic, think that's because I along with a lot of other folks had the religion force fed to us from our earliest school days and the fact that my parents insist on Sunday Mass, Saturday Confession and all the things that go with them. Since I was the oldest of eight kids there was a lot arguments about going to church. Mom quit going because she had to care for the younger kids but Dad went every Sunday and all other times required. In addition my movie choices were limited to what was allowed by the Bishops and pubished in the monthly diocesan newspaper.

Over the past two years I've taken several classes in small engine repair at the county vo-tec night school. There we learned by doing, you were required to bring with you something that needed fixing. Something that was picked up at the curb is what we'd work on; trying to keep from spending lots of money on trying to fix a 10 year old lawn mower is just dumb. If you can make it work without throwing money at it, you could become good at it. Interest in welding maybe the next challenge.

I like to write, I don't think I'm really good at it but I have in the past thought that I'd like to write a novel probably of the SciFi genre but with as much humor as possible. Something silly, maybe.

My future plans, are just to take it easy, watch my finances, keep my extended family from killing each other. Continue to educate myself, expand my abilities. I'd really like to get back to work, even part time maybe preferably. Take a real vacation, a cruise (never been on one, the wife won't fly). Make some new friends and enjoy the ones I have.