The
Important Stuff
Family & Career
After 37 years at Bellsouth / AT&T I am a retired computer systems specialist. My wife and I raised 8 children. She died of colon cancer in 2003. I remarried, retired, moved to another state, and served 2 missions for my church.Faith
I am a Christian. At 12 years of age I joined a protestant church then became agnostic by age 17. In 1969 two LDS missionaries from Safford, AZ re-taught me the gospel. I joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 40+ years I've served in various leadership positions in the LDS Church. You can find out more about my church by clicking this link: Mormon.orgThe Fun Stuff
Computers
The first worked on analog computers for the U.S. Air Force in 1967. I took computer programming classes in college. Our first personal computer was a Commodore-64. I bought my first IBM PC in 1990 with 4DOS OS and a PC version of UNIX shell.Hardware: We currently own 6 PCs, 2 printers, external drives, scanners, etc. In July 2012 my laptop had 118,951 personal files in 8,497 folders (150 GB), 107 GB for digital photos. We've taken 58,000 digital photos since 2002.
Software: I use KompoZer and FileZilla creating websites, IE and Firefox for browsing, PAF, AQ Portable, Roots Magic To-Go, and Family Insight for genealogy (also own and have used Legacy). I am a Family Tree power user and tester of upcoming new products for FamilySearch. I use MS Office and have used Open Office. I own and use many other productivity software programs.
Photography
For photo editing I use Photoshop Elements on my laptop and IrfanView Portable on my flash drive. I'm not the photographer in my family. My wife is the one with talent. I've had some compliment me on my photographs. It isn't talent, it comes from good photo editing software and from taking 100s of photos and getting lucky on one or two of them. However, in the 10 years I've been taking digital photos I've learned a couple things. I enjoy sharing what I learn. Here's my Photography Lessons page: http://photography.ronv.net/Music
I play some musical instruments: guitar, bass, dobro, banjo, harmonica, and piano a little. My rock band during high school was called the Huns. We've written and recorded our own songs. I have my own portable home recording studio. I've recorded multi-track songs playing multiple instruments and singing 4-part harmony. Musical interests include classic rock, blues, some bluegrass, classical, jazz, and other music forms. Photos and a band bio are at this link: http://southerngaragebands.com/huns.html
