Who, me?!?
Now, for my life story, in 9000 words or less. Hm. Less, definitely less.
I was born a poor black child...Um, not exactly...
Call me Ishmael...Naw, something's not right about that...
In the beginning there was the...Wait a minute Cap'n, aren't you in enough trouble with the Religious Right already? Actually, no, but we'll leave that one anyway...
Who am I? Can I condemn this man to slavery...Hold it, that one requires orchestral accompaniment...
Enough screwing around with the opener: a little history. The reason this site is called "Captain Oblivious" is that my family has been mocking me for generally being oblivious for decades. When I was a teenager, I once walked into the living room and sat down and read the newspapers. After I finished the third paper (don't ask me why we got three papers - remember, I'm oblivious here...), I looked around and said to my mother, "Is there something different about this room?" After laughing hysterically and calling in my sister to witness, she pointed out that they had taken down all the Christmas decorations. This would have been funny enough - not noticing the decorations coming down. The real killer, though, was that I had been sitting in a chair that was occupying the same space the Christmas Tree had for the past three months (again, don't ask why it took us three months to take down the decorations, this is the oblivious guy talking).
My full name is Robert O'Donoghue McDonagh. I was born Robert Paul Donahue, Jr., though. There's a story behind that, and maybe I'll write it up one day. The Reader's Digest Condensed version: I got married, and changed my last name (I took my old last name as my middle name). In case you doubted it, there's one proof that I'm a certified Flaming Liberal, not to mention a Card Carrying Member of the ACLU, a member in good standing of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and a registered Democrat (yes, I admit to all of that - even the last one - in public)...
I'm an obsessive reader, and I cheerfully admit that most of what I read has absolutely no literary merit whatsoever. I like it that way. I read mysteries and science fiction/fantasy almost exclusively. I'm not so insecure that I can't appreciate a good children's book, and I have an entire bookshelf in my library dedicated to non-adult fiction.
I'm a gadget freak of the highest order. I have several versions of Palm and Handspring PDAs lying around the house, because every time a better one came out I had to have it. I have three (yes, that's 3) TiVo's in my house, two of which are networked wirelessly and all of which are hacked so that they exceed 200 hours of storage. I have almost a dozen computers as well, including a Mac SE/30 running System 6 (and quite cheerfully, too). I've tried the Watch PDAs, I have two iPods, and if there's a gadget out there I haven't tried, sooner or later I will...
Professionally, I'm a Lotus Geek. I've had jobs where I worked as an admin, some where I was a developer, and quite a few where I was both. I'm one of those weirdos who believes that you can't be truly good at either unless you are also pretty good at the other. I'm not a fanatic about *either* J2EE or .NET, but I've worked with both in the past and I'm sure I'll do so again. Give me a choice, though, and I'll use Notes/Domino instead (well, unless you're asking me to write an accounting system or something equally inappropriate for Notes).
This blog will most likely cover some technical stuff, but it will also cover a fair amount of personal stuff. While I am married with a child, though, I'm going to refrain from publishing the image, name or age of my child. I'm not quite a professional paranoic, but there are too many lunatics out there (yes, this means you). And I know that anybody who's truly interested in finding out that sort of information will be able to, but I don't want to make it easy for them. So you'll probably see references to my wife and our daughter, but that's all the detail I'm comfortable with at this point.
I was born a poor black child...Um, not exactly...
Call me Ishmael...Naw, something's not right about that...
In the beginning there was the...Wait a minute Cap'n, aren't you in enough trouble with the Religious Right already? Actually, no, but we'll leave that one anyway...
Who am I? Can I condemn this man to slavery...Hold it, that one requires orchestral accompaniment...
Enough screwing around with the opener: a little history. The reason this site is called "Captain Oblivious" is that my family has been mocking me for generally being oblivious for decades. When I was a teenager, I once walked into the living room and sat down and read the newspapers. After I finished the third paper (don't ask me why we got three papers - remember, I'm oblivious here...), I looked around and said to my mother, "Is there something different about this room?" After laughing hysterically and calling in my sister to witness, she pointed out that they had taken down all the Christmas decorations. This would have been funny enough - not noticing the decorations coming down. The real killer, though, was that I had been sitting in a chair that was occupying the same space the Christmas Tree had for the past three months (again, don't ask why it took us three months to take down the decorations, this is the oblivious guy talking).
My full name is Robert O'Donoghue McDonagh. I was born Robert Paul Donahue, Jr., though. There's a story behind that, and maybe I'll write it up one day. The Reader's Digest Condensed version: I got married, and changed my last name (I took my old last name as my middle name). In case you doubted it, there's one proof that I'm a certified Flaming Liberal, not to mention a Card Carrying Member of the ACLU, a member in good standing of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and a registered Democrat (yes, I admit to all of that - even the last one - in public)...
I'm an obsessive reader, and I cheerfully admit that most of what I read has absolutely no literary merit whatsoever. I like it that way. I read mysteries and science fiction/fantasy almost exclusively. I'm not so insecure that I can't appreciate a good children's book, and I have an entire bookshelf in my library dedicated to non-adult fiction.
I'm a gadget freak of the highest order. I have several versions of Palm and Handspring PDAs lying around the house, because every time a better one came out I had to have it. I have three (yes, that's 3) TiVo's in my house, two of which are networked wirelessly and all of which are hacked so that they exceed 200 hours of storage. I have almost a dozen computers as well, including a Mac SE/30 running System 6 (and quite cheerfully, too). I've tried the Watch PDAs, I have two iPods, and if there's a gadget out there I haven't tried, sooner or later I will...
Professionally, I'm a Lotus Geek. I've had jobs where I worked as an admin, some where I was a developer, and quite a few where I was both. I'm one of those weirdos who believes that you can't be truly good at either unless you are also pretty good at the other. I'm not a fanatic about *either* J2EE or .NET, but I've worked with both in the past and I'm sure I'll do so again. Give me a choice, though, and I'll use Notes/Domino instead (well, unless you're asking me to write an accounting system or something equally inappropriate for Notes).
This blog will most likely cover some technical stuff, but it will also cover a fair amount of personal stuff. While I am married with a child, though, I'm going to refrain from publishing the image, name or age of my child. I'm not quite a professional paranoic, but there are too many lunatics out there (yes, this means you). And I know that anybody who's truly interested in finding out that sort of information will be able to, but I don't want to make it easy for them. So you'll probably see references to my wife and our daughter, but that's all the detail I'm comfortable with at this point.
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