What do I do? I work at Vista Ridge High School to support 2100+ students, ~200 teachers, ~800 PC's, a handful of local servers, dozens of printers, and other strange, bewildering, and archaic techno-items. I am supported closely by my HS team leader, Judi Doyle, and the rest of my High School and Tech Services team.
Defenders of my sanity
I am assisted by a small group of “techies”. These are my Junior and Senior students that come in and help me with whatever is on my plate at the time.
How'd I get here...
Me? I graduated from the University of Houston with a degree in Manufacturing Engineering and a minor in Industrial Supervision. I was a substitute teacher for Houston ISD for a year and decided that teaching was for me. I successfully completed HISD’s Alternative Certification Program and became a certified PK-6 self-contained classroom teacher and certified "Gifted and Talented" within HISD. I taught the computer science ancillary class for many years at Pearl Rucker Elementary until I was offered a job as a UNIX (Solaris) instructor in private industry. I played that game for a year then was poached by my former UNIX students in Round Rock to work at the Tellabs manufacturing plant. After 5 years and 2 weeks there, I ended up on the Global Information Services team and laid off like everyone else when the plant closed. I did a miserable hitch in Houston (while my home and family was in Round Rock) at a telemarketing company as a UNIX admin followed by a position (again in Houston) at Bonner Elementary as their local but unofficial campus tech support guy. Today I am gratefully and happily employed by LISD Tech Services and plan to be here for a quite a while.
You did what now?
What’s the secret to using “technology” you ask? RTFM. Read The Furnished Manual. A lot of highly paid and well educated people design hardware and software and follow up by writing funny little things called User Manuals. Oh! --the time, money, and aggravation folks can save by freeing these from the shrink-wrap and spending a few minutes reading. If you don't have time to read the handbook, then please consult the 'Help' menu. That's the first place I go to when you have questions for me...
ZZZOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!!
I love my Honda CBR1100XX a.k.a. "Super Blackbird".
