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The One and Only Bill Chambers Me and Bill A s of this moment I have technically had three fathers-in-law. The first one did not like me at all. The second tolerated me, I think. We had pleasant exchanges but never had a meaningful conversation. But the third, my current father-in-law, actually likes me or at least he acts like he does. I'm not sure if this was because I improved with age or I improved on selecting fathers-in-law, or my current father-in-law is just extremely kindhearted. Well it's not likely the second since my selection criteria in all cases was based solely on their daughters. I met Bill in the fall of '86. My girlfriend at the time, now my wife, and I drove up to Sacramento to visit him, I think it was Thanksgiving. When we arrived he had just finished vacuuming the carpet in his townhouse. Now you may be wondering how I managed to remember such a seemingly insignificant detail like that. Well, Bill is rather meticulous about things. ...

  Change is in the Air - Back to the Bay Area Playing with Nyshia in our Sunnyvale House on Selo A fter my LA adventure it was nice to be back in the Sacramento office just managing the software staff there. However, I was beginning to question my situation. My job was just OK and the only options were to move further up in management, which I had little interest in doing, or to move down to programming again. Moving down might have been an option but programming in a one of a kind language was going to limit my options for future programming positions plus GBS couldn't, or maybe that's wouldn't, pay me as just a programmer. I was beginning to realize that I would likely have to become a COBOL programmer, the language all the top Computer Science majors, including myself, made fun of back in college. The longer I waited to do this the harder it was going to be, as I would need to start in a lower level position. GBS was looking at moving to a UNIX platform, an ope...

Frankly, It Was a Very Good Year                Frank's September of my years                              my girlfriend Maryann I n 1965 we had the Beatles, we had Motown, and we had the Rolling Stones. “I Can't Get No Satisfaction” had been released at the beginning of the summer but by the end of that summer my father purchased a new Frank Sinatra album, "September of My Years". It was of course the Beatles hey-day and on my own, I was listening exclusively to rock songs either from my own record collection or on the radio. I mostly listened to WMCA with the “Good Guys” and WABC with Bruce Morrow (“Cousin Brucie”). I had previously listened to 1010 WINS as well but by the summer of '65 they had changed formats. Still, my parents liked music so music was played by more than just me around the house. My dad had a good selection of big band jazz rec...