About
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Hi, I’m Dirk.
I was born many, many years ago in Mississippi. I’ve lived in Virginia most of my life, but have been to Northern California, North Carolina, the Virgin Islands and Kansas while in the Coast Guard. Now I’ve settled down in Elizabeth City, NC and don’t plan on moving for quite some time. I’m happily married to my high school sweetheart Westly Anne, and we have three children that are all cuter than yours.
I never leave home without my Gerber multi-tool. You’re about as likely to find a soldering iron on my desk as a pencil, assuming you can find either under the growth of various and sundry crap that collects around my keyboard. I strongly dislike cars with automatic transmissions and power windows. My musical tastes change more frequently than some people change socks, I have Heavy Metal, Classical, Jazz, Funk, Nerdcore Hip-Hop and Electronic music on my iPod all the time. I enjoy intra-office Nerf gun wars. I’ll try any type of food once, as long as it meets basic sanitation rules. I’m allergic to odd things like walnuts and bananas, but I can chew on poison ivy with no ill effects. I’m always ready to crack a joke, and 9 times out of 10 it’s way, WAY over the line and would make politically correct people’s hair stand on end, then fall out.
My main computer is a tiny Everex laptop that goes everywhere with me. While I mainly use Windows any more, I’m not a MS fanboy. I’m comfortable with Windows, Mac OS(9 and X) and Linux. I have an even mix of OSX and Windows machines at home. Honestly, I really prefer Mac OSX, but the hardware to run it legitimately costs too damned much, and my laptop is pretty low spec and can’t run hackintosh versions of OSX effectively. Donations to the “Buy Dirk a Macbook Pro” fund can be mailed to me at home, assuming you know how to find my address.
I like cameras. I have a few in my collection, though only 1 of the 20 or so is from this decade. I like repairing them and taking pictures with them (or at least trying to). My current line of work has me working side by side with folks who are all quite skilled with cameras, and somehow occasionally manage to make money with them. The secret to this still eludes me. My co-workers and I train people who for the most part have never even touched a camera, besides the one in their cell phone, to be some of the best consumer digital camera technicians in the world. Yeah, I know that sounds boastful, but the reports from PC World and Consumer Reports back us up on that. CITS Training department reprezentin’ up in the 757, ya’ll.
My Keirsey Temprament Sorter type is ESTP – “Promoter Artisan”. That is, of course, if you give those kinds of test any credence at all. I suggest that you don’t. The only way to even attempt to understand my behavior is to witness it in all of it’s slipshod, ill-planned, chaotic glory. Even people, like my wife, who have witnessed my erratic and unpredictable behavior for many years still don’t fully understand it. Yet somehow, I still manage to get things done, and in many cases get them done in an awesome fashion.
I’m no genius, but I would rank myself at the bottom edge of the top quartile of the population for intelligence. This view quite likely a bit inflated by my current line of work in a call center. All sorts of standardized tests by folks like the College Board and Johns Hopkins University used to rank me in the top 5% all the time when I was a kid, but I’ve had at least one insanely high fever and done many other stupid things since then. I’m fairly certain I’ve dropped a few IQ points in various places over the years. If you find them, please mail those along with the previously mentioned check for the Macbook Pro.
I currently work for the US tech support branch of a company that shall remain nameless. I’m the lead technical trainer in the camera department. Before this, I worked for Exis.Net (a decent ISP in Virginia Beach, VA that got bought out and is now a steaming heap of poo). Prior to that, I was in The United States Coast Guard for 4.5 yrs and prior to that I’ve been everything from an OfficeMax salesperson pushing crap computers on unsuspecting customers, to unskilled labor in a chemical plant, to a state park ranger.
No, I don’t give my email address out readily, but if you search this site enough you can find references to it. It’s not that I don’t like to talk to people, it’s just that I hate spambots, and I really, REALLY hate people who email me things like “OMGF LIEK HOW DID YOU DO THAT OEN THING YOU HAEV ON UR PAGE WITH TEH STUFF I TRIED THAT AND MY MOM SAYED I ALMOTS BRUNED DOWN TEH HAUS WITH IT LAWL!!!!!!11″ Sorry, I’m just not one to suffer fools well. If you do find my email address, please turn off your capslock and use a spellchecker. Also be aware that if I ignore an IM from you, it’s because either I’m too busy to mess with you at the moment, or I’m ignoring you due to your use of LOLSPEAK and/or 1337-5p34k and/or grammar and spelling that makes the baby Jesus cry. Check yourself, then try again. If I still don’t reply, it just ain’t gonna happen, pal. Walk away.
