Hello Steemit! 07/17/16

My name is Tony Jennings and I've just joined the community recently.

My wife, Catherine (the one on the right), and I (the uglier one on the left) have six kids from our prior marriages and are currently living in the Scottsville area of Virginia, one of the several states of the united states of america.

Growing Up

I grew up out west in Washington, mostly in a little town called Humptulips which lies between the Quinault rain forest and the pacific ocean, though I did spend a few years in a little town called Bouse in Arizona.

At an early age I had an interest in computers and decided that I wanted one, so I spent a summer mowing lawns, chopping firewood, washing log trucks, and doing anything else I could find someone to pay me for to save up and buy my first system, a Commodore 64, from a friend that lived in the nearby town of Hoquiam. Soon after that I bought my first modem (64 baud!) from another friend, which let him upgrade to the top of the line 128 baud modem which had just come out.

I spent most of my time either out in the woods, down at the river, working with my dad (a carpenter), reading, and teaching myself to program.

Working and College

While I was always working growing up (getting in firewood, helping to fix the gravel road, painting and roofing buildings for my dad, washing cars, etc.), my first real job was in a local meat department to pay for gas and insurance for my first car, which looked very much like the one below, though mine was bright yellow.

In highschool, I was one of the computer nerds and although I got along with most people just fine, I mostly associated with other kids that were interested in computers and math.

I wanted to work with my father and learn carpentry (my dad was a 3rd generation carpenter that could build just about anything, though he mostly build houses from the ground up, doing all of his own electrical work, concrete work, and plumbing), but my parents convinced me to go to college instead.

I went to college for a few years, but finally stopped going as I found that I learned things much more quickly on my own and I've never been one for arbitrary (if well meaning) rules.

Internet Connection Troubleshooting

I moved up to the Seattle area and started working at an internet service provider called Sprynet, where I learned how to trouble shoot dial up connections for more modern computers.

Video Game Technical Support

After a year of that, I moved over to doing technical support for a small kids video game company called Humongous Entertainment and spent the next year learning to troubleshoot video games and tinkering with the Access 2.0 database that they used internally for support tickets.

Database Administration and Web Development

Our database admin then left for a better job, so I took over the database, converted it to Access 97, converted it into a client/server model, and eventually replaced the Access 97 backend with a MSSQL backend. During that period, Humongous was bought out by a larger video game distributor and then they were bought out by Infogrames Entertainment, which later changed it's name to Atari. In addition to being a database admin and developer for them, I was also responsible for the technical support website and helping to fix problems with an Oracle database when the guys back east ran into problems.

Quake Mods

My free time at work was spent learning more about databases and web development, writing Quake mods, and playing whatever the latest first shooter game the office had going on the internal network.

Freelancing

Since that time, my work has mostly consisted of freelancing and learning how internet marketing works. These days, I build websites (custom and wordpress), web applications, and web platforms for people that need them using the LAMP stack.

Hobbies

For fun, I spend my time doing things with my wife and kids or pursuing one or more of my current hobbies, which include:

Programming

This is how I make a living, but some of my free time is spent reading up on new ways to do things, learning node.js, writing wordpress plugins, and doing other random things that catch my interest.

Martial Arts

I attend judo classes at a local dojo a few times a week with my children, attend the occasional BJJ class at a nearby dojo, and work on my Wing Chun. Mostly I focus on Judo and BJJ.

Music

I play guitar and tinker with both the bass guitar and violin. I've gotten decent with the guitar and bass guitar, but my violin work still sounds much like a yowling cat.

Law

I'm a traditionalist anarchist, meaning that I believe we don't need other men and women governing us as we are perfectly capable of doing it ourselves.

Because of this, I've spent a good deal of time wrapping my mind around what law is, what kinds of laws there are, how laws become applicable to people, etc.

Reading

I'm an avid reader. I used to read a lot of science fiction and fantasy, but in the last decade I've spent my limited reading time learning about anything I'm interested in rather than reading fiction. Heinlein and the Cthulhu mythos probably rank among my favorites.

Life

I'm a bit of a house mouse as I don't enjoy shopping, eating out, going to bars, church, paying way too much for movies, or any of the other things that most people seem to enjoy.

That being said, I enjoy a good conversation, relaxing in the sun, pursuing my hobbies, and hanging out with friends and family. If you share an interest and are in the same area of the world I am, look me up!