Any other programmers out there?

Hello, I have been a member of this site for the last 3 months now. I am trying to reach out to other people with like interests (I need to make some friends). I don't get out much since I work a lot from home and at the client sites. Allow me to introduce myself, My name is Chase Thomas and I am a Senior Consultant / Architect for Magenic Technologies. I work out of the Minneapolis office in Golden Valley. My interests include, gaming, writing code, developing software and, oh yes.. Programming! I had surgery last November and have already lost 70 lbs. I feel GREAT! If you are a fellow programmer and need help solving a problem or just want to talk about code or games - give me a shout. I would love to chat or exchange email. Cheers!

Chase, Well, I'm a rusty programmer (VB) that doesn't have much time for practice lately. I want to learn VB.NET next. I work 40+ hours on the online development team for Sony creating tutorials and emulators using mainly Flash, Fireworks and Captivate (soon - we are waiting for the Captivate software). I need to brush up on my ActionScripting. I am also completing my BS in Computer Information Technology this semester. Unfortunately all my computer classes are done and I'm finishing the stragglers (Accounting 1, Marketing for Managers, Statistics) so I don't have much computer time for fun now. Lots of busy work though. I am also a Teachers Assistant this semester and next semester and I will be an Instructor/Adjunct Professor in the Fall. So you can see that I have fallen behind in programming and now have probably forgotten WAY more than I knew. I plan on getting back into it after this semester. You may want to read my extensive profile for details on my weight loss, but I am very happy with it. I started off at 330 and am down to 213 today. I had a three week plateau that was making me anxious and I seem to have gotten past it finally. I would love to know more about how you got in the door for programming and if you can work from home or have to go in. Are you contract or salary? If contract, how did that work for insurance for the surgery? Oh... I also miss gaming. Since going back to school three years ago and going on full steam I have cancelled cable and not played games. I'm trying to remove distractions but in the process I have lost touch with what is "going on" today. Everyone talks about this game at work and my family talks about what show is on and I just look at them and have no idea right now. Two more years and I will have my Masters and then I will partake of TV and games. I do watch movies occasionally because that doesn't require a weekly committment to the TV. Laura

Howdy, My name is Adam and I'm a programmer from Lubbock, Texas. I currently code in Perl, C, and some of the web technologies such as .NET (although I much prefer the low level code). I just had surgery one month ago and have lost 30 lbs, hoping to be down 100 by the time I go to Germany at the end of May... Anyway Chase, drop me a line if you'd like. I started working on computers in 1982 on a Commodore VIC-20 - it seems that you might be an old-schooler as well.

It's good to hear that there are still some true geeks like me out there To answer some of your questions so far... I started programming when I was six on the Apple computer and had my first programming job in high school. It didn't last long because they could not afford to keep paying for my services so I moved on to flipping burgers. I did not reenter the programming world until the late 90's. I did some VB work to keep some food on the table and did a lot of ASP and static HTML. Right now I am working mostly in C# and VB.NET. I had a gig a year ago writing an ActiveX control in VB 6 (it was a weather control that interpreted MNG format radar data). It's been mostly .NET since dec 2001. Prior to this I was a C++ programmer also doing VB and Java on the side to keep busy. I used to want to make games until I heard how poorly the game developers get treated so I opted out for that one. Now I just focus on my Frameworks and other business end related stuff - plus I started a blog where I dump my thoughts on programming. You can check it out at blogs.magenic.com/chaset - there are some other blogs from our other consultants as well that you may enjoy. I do work from home sometimes, but mostly I go to the client site because I am also a mentor in C# and VB.NET so I don't get to stay home as often as I would like (plus the drive is a real killer - 1 1/2 hours one way for most of the clients I have had in the last year and a half). I am not a contract employee I am full time with a consulting company (http://www.magenic.com). They are the best company I have ever worked for, they treat all their employees very well and our insurance is great. It completely covered my surgery. We had one other consultant at our company out of the Minneapolis office who had a RNY. I went with the VBG but sometimes wonder if it was the right choice (time will tell). If you guys (or any other geeks out there) ever want to shoot the techno-breeze or share ideas drop me an email. I am always willing to learn something new or help out with a problem. Sounds like Adam has been at this as long as I have and likes the bare metal as much as I do - what about you Laura? When did you get bit by the geek bug? Cheers! Chase Thomas

Hi...I am Nancy and new to this site. I am having my consultation with the doctor at the end of July. I was a programmer for 14 years and then went into IT Project Manager. I started with Cobol - IMS DB2, etc. Then did Cool:Gen - a CASE tool that compiles to many different languages. I then moved on to Web Development and did VB, VBScript, JavaScript, HTML, ADO, SSG, XML, OO Programming, a little bit of .Net. Now I run projects where all of these technologies are used. I also run a few web sites for some small businesses in my town and used to run a fan site. The Web is what I do for a creative outlet. I love to work with PhotoShop and Paint Shop Pro. It's like crayons for grown-ups. It is nice to meet other "speakers of the geek talk"...LOL! Nancy

Hi guys, I am an ASP.NET Web Designer working for a family owned company in Greenville, Pa.  I have done about 50 websites starting with classic ASP, and within the last year developing in .NET 2 and 3.5.  I work in VB, and am learning new things every day.  I have done web sites for our area, as well as companies in St. Louis.  I am still a n00b, but I can offer some insight into .NET.

Anyone feel free to hit me up if you need anything.