Bonneville America Forums Forums Off Topic Discussion Forums Lounge What Does Everyone Do For a Living

Well yet another techie, software engineer to be exact.
Have worked in CAD tool development, commerical security and fire systems development, commercial HVAC control systems, and other industries too. Did the internet startup root and became poor not rich! Ex dishwasher and appliance repairman. Currently own my own software consulting/contracting company. Also a wanna be car and bike builder and am trying to figure out how to make a living by riding around on my TBA all day!

Alright, alright. I guess since there are a bunch of other nerd jobs listed here I can share mine.

I am the senior research engineer for Spraying Systems Co. We manufacture nozzles used in industry and agriculture. We also do much of the system control for the headers and pumps, etc., etc. ad nauseum. I am in charge of our labs, the 7 lab techs, a machinist and two other engineers. I have a masters in Mechanical/Aerospace engineering with a specialization in fluid mechanics. I use our equipment to optimize and measure spray characteristics. I have a few lasers I use to measure drop size and drop velocities. Never, ever look into the laser with your good eye.

I did 4 years in the Navy at NAS Lemoore, Ca fixing F/A-18's as an Aviation Electrician. Yes, I joined the Navy to see the world and got see IL, TN, CA, NV and AZ. Woo Hoo! What a tour! Cool job but I went in to pay for college so got out and spent about 8-1/2 years in college. Supported myself then by bartending and/or working as a parts driver/counterman at a Lincoln-Mercury dealership. I think I liked the bartending better.

I've always wrrenched on things: cars, bikes, whatever. This is the coolest bike I think I've ever worked on and rode. Other than that I READ, homebrew, golf and whatever else seems to catch my fancy at the time.

OK, now that I have my profile in place I am sure I am just going to have to keep the women at bay.

Senior partner in Long Mountain Grocery (hence the screen name) a small grocery, meat and general merchandise store in Rustburg, VA. I've been there for 36 years having started when I was a kid. Also, buy foreclosures and remodel them both for rental and resale. If anyone has wanted to get into the real estate business on the foreclosure end, save your money and get your credit lined up, because in the next 3-5 years, there will be a record number of people losing their properties. Remember where you read it first. Steve

Stewart,

No sh!t, I used to have a '62 Ford Falcon for the longest time. Retro fit it with a rebuilt (my 1st engine rebuild) 289 and used 64 Mustang motor perches. Fit like a glove. What a cool car. Quite the sleeper. People never expect a car like that to get up and move. Way cool!

Roy Rogers Restaurants
I'm a franchise business consultants for Roy Rogers. I've worked for Roy's since '79, 6 years with Marriott the rest with my current employer who bought the brand a few years back. I support our franchisees, primarily HMSHost, which operates travel plazas on the NY/PA/NJ/DE/MD turnpike systems.
Married for 25 years, two daughters 18 & 21.
Besides motorcycling I enjoy working in the yard and keeping our '96 Impala SS looking good.

I'm a twenty year old millionaire rock star with the physique of a greek god, women all over me and a 24 hour erection....Oh no wait, I just woke up and realized I'm a 32 year-old divorced correctional officer. I do have two awesome little boy's though and somehow managed to have alot of fun on the way here.

"I used to have a '62 Ford Falcon for the longest time. "

I knew that.
Actually Mike Sr used to have one and he told me you used to have one also. We were wondering how many others here at one time or another owned one. The 289 is on the way out, making space for a 351w stroked to 396.

Mold polisher for the week... Drink beer and polish bike parts on the off days...

Wow, this is pretty interesting. I think if everyone relocated to the same location it would quite a community and the jails would be pretty much empty. I'm not sure exactly what I do, but it keeps me very busy.

Actually work for Montana State University as an Extension agent, huh? We are the educational outreach of the land grant Universities. There's at least one of me in every county across the states. Kind of an under the radar secret organization. Practically I spend about 1/2 my time facilitating the local and regional 4-H youth program of 200 kids and 100 leaders. I also work a lot with invasive plant species, supporting county and landowner management programs, also answer lots of questions from what kind of spider is that in the bathroom sink to why is my lilac dying? I can give a ten minute answer to a a homeowner question and not say anything definitive, but they generally leave happy. I get to work with among the last of the great American heroes, the cattle ranchers. Anymore I am working a great deal in community development, chairing a local board that oversees community improvement block grant programs and business development. I like it because it's a government job that doesn't really have a direct supervisor & is totally non-regulatory. We're purely a information source & here to serve the community. On the other hand, I work for nearly everyone I know in some respects. Beyond the normal M-F 8-5, I attend lots of night meetings and weekend programs. Having said that I get to be involved in almost anything I want to. I've been at this for 17 years now.

Prior to this I worked 6 years as a backcountry law enforcement ranger for the park service in Canyonlands NP and elsewhere and a few years cowboying on a ranch in Utah, before going back to graduate school at Utah State Univ.

At times I've been a borderline hippy and other times a borderline redneck. I get to ride the bike a lot for work in my old cowboy chaps and red, white and blue helmet

I wish I knew how to do the stuff other people on this board have knowledge in.

JH

Wendell, congrats on your upcoming USAF retirement! I retired after 21 years in 1988. Duties as a Aircraft Crew Chief (F-4) (Phantoms) and SR-71 (HABU) phase docks. Was crossed trained to Aircraft Armaments Systems, for the balance of my time in. Overseas PCS; Cam Ranh Bay, Da Nang, Kunsan, Udorn, Camp New Amsterdam, and Hahn.
Now, I'm the Utility Systems Supervisor for the City of Chowchilla, which means I operate/manage the cities water wells, the distribution system, the wastewater treatment plant, and the collection system. I'm also the Backflow Prevention program manager and Backflow Prevention Device Tester. For a small rural town we are now in a major growth spurt with a lot of growing pains. The TBA is a great stress relief.
AmyLee is also prior enlisted with the Air Force, we also have two sons in the USAF, one is in Lakenheath, the other is at Keesler.
Bob

I am a photographer and have been so since i left high school, started out as an assistant at a photo studio and moved on to news photographer after 3 years.

Worked for different newspapers for about 10 years, got to travel a lot over europe and meet a lot of interesting people.

The last 7 years i have been working for a bookprinting company who makes high quality books, i have a full digital photostudio and travel a lot over Sweden, photographing all sort of products from fine art to furnitue and arcitecture.

Johann

Chemical Plant Operator, although they relabeled us as "technicians" a couple years ago to fall inline with the rest of industry(?). Anyway, I've done this for 15 years. Before that I was a union pipefitter/welder. Before that I was an LPN/LVN depending on which state you live in. I got into that after being a hospital corpsman in the navy. Thanks for asking.

Hey Keith,
We use your nozzles in our 4 fluidized bed reactors. We keep 52 in service all the time and replace them rather often.

Ha Ha! Bristol is not one of our tracks. Guess again.

Ride Safe.

Ryan

How about Chicagoland Speedway?

Hey Ryan,

How about Charlotte Motor Speedway (I will never call it Lowes)?

I'll trade some nights in my condo about 125 miles away from Charlotte?!?

Condo is 25 miles from the Blue Ridge Parkway!!

Not near as glamorous as most of you other folks. I am just a poor hill hick that loves the area (not the state) where he lives and finds a way to make it.

Started making money to buy school clothes at about 10
At 12 ½ started working legally moving irrigation pipe in beet fields in the summer and worked in a restaurant as a bus boy/dishwasher during the winter.

At 15 mom divorced my step dad and remarried, moved to the city (Bakersfield CA) and started doing a little body fender work with my new step dad (that didn’t last long)

Moved to St Simons Island GA at 16 and worked in two of the high class resorts there, mostly cooking (Sea Palms and Cloister Hotel) and went to school in Brunswick at Glen Academy

After that I moved back to CA to finish high school (GA was WAY ahead of CA in public school, and other reasons)

Skipping the next 2-3 years
Moved to where I am now at 20, made the decision to work where I live instead of live where I work.

Worked in saw mills for the next 10 +- years pulling planer chain, green chain, pile green chain, fork lift truck, up to 988 loaders, stacker operator …..

Saw mills got run out of the area between environmentalists and the big saw mill companies.

Started in gold exploration and worked away from home most of the time. I worked my way up the ladder in the gold industry to site foreman/reclamation supervisor and that ended.

Went back to school and got my license to prepare income taxes and qualified for accounting assistant and lived off that for a while.

Got a job with the Forest Service as a Minerals Administrator and I am still doing that, until this job gets outsourced (might happen in the next few years) and still do income taxes as a home business.

I was a single parent from the time my son was 1 ½ years to when he moved to TX at 20.

Since I was 12 ½ (at that time you could get a work permit at that age so you could pay taxes) I have paid taxes all but 2 years ….. time to retire, if only I could afford it

Now you folks know more about me than most people that live around here!

Short and sweet and in chronological order:

Paper boy
Volunteer in a Veterans Hospital
Burger flipper
Hitchhiked across the country
Forklift operator
USAF (one stint, ground radio)
Surboard manufacturer
Commercial fisherman
HBO receiver tuner
Dragline oiler <- the worst!!
Two-way Radio repair
Computers (all OSes, all platforms)
Software test engineer

Too funny, we got lawyers, computer wizards, Airline employees, event (concert) coordinaters, Architects, engineers, emts, nurses, and a host of others all whom have valuable skills and assets, whom I'm certain would lend any of their expertise to you if you asked politly...and whos getting harrased.....the guy with NASCAR connestions...LOL

Now really what about Martinsville???

As a teen and in college it was Baskin-Robbins scooping ice cream and now I am an architect and closet handmade furniture craftsman. I still have a passion for ice cream though.

Hey Jack(ooooya).....Whaddaya MEAN...your U.S. Forrest Service job may be outsourced very soon???

Geez!!!! WHAT?!!! Do those "Bright Boys" in this present freakin' U.S. Administration think that there's such lush, verdant and well-managed FORRESTS in that sandlot known as DUBAI that they're goin' to try and let THOSE A$$HOLES take over YOUR JOB TOO????

Cheers,
Dwight
(surely SOMEBODY in WASHINGTON has to have a freakin' BRAIN!!!)

Lots of computer and engineer types in here, so I will add in another geek-type job. I am a CPA and have my own firm with 6 other people here. In addition to all the other things CPA's do, we specialize in helping small manufacturing companies. Especially in regards to cash flow, and inventory and job-cost controls. Fun huh. I guess working with manufacturers comes from growing up working in the local mills.

Have a wife of 22 years, and four lovely daughters. Because my oldest is almost 16, I now hate all high school age boys. I used to be one, once upon a time, and I still remember how evil we are. The kids all swim competitively, so we spend way too much time travling to swim meets year round.

Hobbies are the kids, then riding, of course, running marathons (very slow runner), and anything to do with water - canoeing, kayaking, duck hunting, but especially wreck-diving. Been diving since 1978, and like riding, is something I have never been able to get out of my system. It seems like lots of divers also ride. It was with divers that I first discovered Triumphs way back when.

Also love to travel, but do not like the big tourist-resort type travel. I like the places less visited (cheaper also). Spent a week last year at a little fishing village in Mexico for under $1,000 for the wife and I (air included). Diving, exploring in a Jeep, and relaxing.

Invisible Mending–Estate Planning–Acupuncture–Tree & Stump Removal-Pedicure-Natural Fertilizers–Riot Control-Cheese Wheels–Carrion Removal-Hand Fitted Lingerie–Masonry-Bush Pilot-Stevador-and Pin Setting.

Actually I have nearly as diverse background as the above;
Master of two dis-similar trades - Butcher/Meatcutter and Pipefitter. Have served as a news paper carrier, weekend manger of a coin operated car wash, coal/coke operator, chemical plant operator, pipefitter, certified mobile crane operator, pipe fitter, welder, maintenance foreman, Asst. maintenance super. Currently work as a maintenance planner, data coordinator and in-house SAP specialist in SAP PM and MM modules. I was happiest as a pipe fitter and should have remained there. I regret not being able to ply that craft. It afforded me the opportunity to work with my hands and my head, and you got to see what you produced. Although I find this interesting, I wasn't going to respond to this because I 've come to find and appriciate that it isn't so much what someone does to earn their daily bread but who they are external to that. But, I had my quarterly review today and again came to remind myself how dissatisfied I am in the whole work routine. It just plain sucks anymore.

OKAY!!!

After reading these Bios and seeing what a diverse group of truly insightful, caring and productive citizenry we Triumph owners be..........I was juuuuust thinkin' that if there would be some sort of a correlative thread on some Harley Website somewhere in this vast communication media known as the Internet......would it look something like the follow............

____________________________________________________________

Hi! I'm Joe. I'm a Dentist.
____________________________________________________________

Hi! I'm Mike. I'm a Dentist.
____________________________________________________________

Hi! I'm Mary. I'm a Dentist's wife.
____________________________________________________________

Hi! I'm NUKE. I is a "Tweeker" and I is in prison.(thanks to that Becky person)
____________________________________________________________

Hi! I'm Jim. I'm a Dentist too.
____________________________________________________________

Hi! I'm Arnold. I'm a (clueless) Governor.
____________________________________________________________




(Well....I think by now you guys "get" where I'm goin' with this thing, RIGHT?!)


Cheers,
Dwight

Well, at 15 I started working at a Golf Course in Marysville, Oh. In 4 years I did every odd job around that golf course you can think of and then some.

Went to college, but still worked. The first year of school I worked for, get this “ACME Painting Company”. Never saw the Road Runner, but that Coyote was running the place. My second job while in college was Gahanna Electric doing odd jobs. With the main job having me servicing all the Lighting needs for all the Clark Gas Stations in Ohio. My last job in college was working for Radio Shack. I needed to clean up so I could start interviewing for what I thought was going to be a real job.

Once out of college I worked for Rockwell International/The Boeing Company (Boeing bought all of Rockwell’s defense business in 96) as a Field Service Engineer in support of the Nuclear Submarine Fleet. In particular I support the fleets Inertial Navigation Systems aboard all Trident Submarines.

In the past I have worked at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard during overhaul work in support of 594, 637, 640 and 688 class submarines. General Dynamics Electric Boat shipyard during new construction of 688 and 728 (Trident) class submarines, Norfolk Naval Base as the Atlantic fleet technical representative and Newport News Shipyard during new construction of the last five 688 submarines. Currently working onboard the USNS WATERS (based out of Cape Canaveral, FL), which is a naval research vessel doing Trident Submarine testing and such.

So, to all you land lubbers, ahoy from the Bermuda Triangle!!

Tom

Mainly, sit around waiting on 3:30.

retired oilfield trash

I'm a Superhero. Yup. That pretty much sums it up. Every day I fight off alien invasions or save damsels in distress... that sort of thing.

To keep my real identity a secret I have a cover job. I pretend to be a computer guy working for Imation Corp. in Oakdale, Minnesota. In my cover job I maintain UNIX systems. I specialize in HP midrange systems and HP-UX. (That's an operating system) I also do a little Linux and I work on EMC disk arrays and SAN switches. I pretend to know about TCP/IP and DNS and web servers and stuff like that. I don't do Windows. Even a pretend job has its limits.

I have had other cover identities in the past. Long ago, when I first became a Superhero, I made it look like I worked construction, putting up structural steel for new factories in the mining industry in Wyoming. Then, for about 10 or 15 years, off and on, I pretended to be a geological technician in the oil fields of Wyoming and the Rocky Mountains. That was during the oil boom of the late 70's and early 80s. I analyzed wellbore cuttings for hydrocarbons. Did I see that somebody in this thread makes gas chromatographs? I used 'em back then. When the oil business went in the tank in the 80's, I changed my identity once again and worked in a chemistry lab for three years, mostly doing environmental sampling. I sampled all the nasty places where the oil companies had done their business and then pulled out. That was when I bought my first PC-XT and eventually went to work for a computer seller. I've been posing as a computer guy ever since.

Oh, BTW, Superheros don't really wear the cape and tights anymore. Those things pretty much went out of style with disco.

Very sincerely,
Cody

Do you leap tall buildings or just jump over them with your Triumph?

Wow! they say that variety is the spice of life, so no wonder this is the best site on the web.

Me.. I started in Durham Police then, Steel worker, security officer, ships cook in Red Sea, Despatch rider, White Van Driver!, Salesman......

& for the last 14 years run my own Sales & Marketing Agency with my wife.Working for yourself has some benefits.. The bike is a company vehicle!! so I have to use it..

U. S. Marine and soon-to-be Harvard B-school student. I know that is an oxymoron. Kind of like "Marine Intelligence Officer". Or anytime "Air Force" and "warrior" are used in the same conversation. Just kidding Wendell. After I get my MBA maybe I can help figure out a way for this site's HEROS/moderators to keep it running without shelling out any $$ themselves.

Wow, you guys hav exciting jobs. I have a small business selling and repairing HP and Xerox printers and digital copiers. We sell supplies, too.18 months and I'm selling out. Time to try something new.

I turn up most days in a coal/oil fored power station, I maintain the instruments and controls. I served my time as they say as an instrument mechanic ( everybody thought it was musical instruments) In those days it was all pneumatic now it mostly electronic with just a big ram at the end. last few years I have been maintaining pollution monitoring equipment, the analysers for the gas that goes up our stack, Sox Nox Co O2. Im getting more into the enviromental stuff .

I'm new here but spend a lot of time reading this board. I'm half of a two man insurance agency in southern nh. Mainly doing farm insurance, I also farm part time with my parents in the summer. My wife who is quite a bit brighter is a nuke engineer for the navy, she works mostly on Los Angeles attack subs.
She is actually the one who talked me in getting a road bike. So we could ride with her friends, got to admit it was a good idea. It also helped that I got a her a bike first. She rides a savage, cute little bike. We also hunt, run a 4h club,dirtbike, snowmobile when there is snow and keep the woodstove fed.No kids just a giant dog. Suprised to see that there are others from nh on this board.

just spent about 30 mins reading this link so gotta have my 2 penneth.
left school got a job as telephone engineer with GPO, they became Telecom, they became British Telecom, they became BT and now we have been carved of (worrying) to become Openreach (part of the BT group) just right for sell of whilst I am just hanging in there for the "gold watch ... 35 years service in so far.
Done most of it but for last 15 years becoming a rare commodity in the broadband era as a Transmission eng Narrowband and wideband provision and maintainence of systems and bearers, (Still lots of old analogue stuff to keep running until the new generation is fully up and functioning) 2Mb an upwards... sky is the limit,
You'll all be useing my stuff somewhere I guarantee that.
Mustn't grumble really, a good job that has taken me inside some interesting customers premises.
Still go in holes climb poles/ masts..... when the weather is right and if I really want to!!!
cheers, Mike

Professional "Wet Works" Operative for a large Central government agency that collects "data". Sorry, can't tell you who I work for or what I do, since then I'd have to "disappear you"!! In fact, this thread never existed, understand?? Nope, just a plain old Engineer developing plain old car parts for plain old cars (actually, most of our customers are using our parts on SUV's (a scary thought for the day when America wakes up to the stupidity of said SUV's) But, currently looking for something a little different in Colorado...