I often think back to those days in Oakland, CA around 1971, when I finally left Merritt College. I stayed on an extra year to run the schools newly installed IBM Sys 3 Model 10 computer.

It was an amazing mini-computer developed by IBM for the small business market. I was the schools computer hotshot and I had the privilege to spend a whole year developing software for them, in a computer language called RPG 3.

Which actually stands for Report Programming Generator. I took that platform and brought it to a functional business level.

The first job out of college was with a company writing Cobol code. It was not the right fit, but a lady there taught me the concept of Level Blocks.

It was a way of structuring your code, and it changed everything. The Bay Area was exploding with companies installing these new IBM machines, with nobody to write code for them.

My next job was with Golden Grain Macaroni in San Leandro, where I first met my life long friend, Skoge. I built them a system to run their company, and then moved on.

The Bay Area was wide open to me, as IBM continued to install their Sys 3's. I was the guy, I had more work than I could handle, and nobody was better than me.

I've posted about many highlights of that career on this blog, so I won't go any further here.

I guess I just want to say, that you can go from a master of your trade, to nothing, in a heartbeat...