What is your real job?

[fungus]

Well I'm still just 16 years old, I first came to this site when I was only 13 though .. currently at school still, thinking I'm going to do forestry for a job, I'm in Scotland here and there's forestry colleges up in inverness and in dumfries , both of which are quite far away from here, I'll see what happens

[Capt Slog]

Despite my embarassing lack of electrical expertise I'm now a technician in a university physics department.  I make, modify and repair equipment for the labs, and also do the same for the research side of the department.

I've also been an environmental analyst, looking for ppb levels of metals in soil and water.  Done similar for an animal food company and before that the Ministry of Agriculture.

.

[Norm]

Pepa...understand Chlorine we used to make the

stuff 100 some cells had to wear carbon filter

masks when on the cells, still would get caught off

guard and get an accidental dose....just a little

goes a long way learned to really appreciate

lungs and what they do...could inhale okay but

exhaling was another matter....as you coughed

your head off Company claimed it would do no

permanent damage.....'wear your mask to avoid

any future incidents',they said.

[Jon Miller]

Jonathan Miller, Cornwall UK. 20

I am a full time student, I have just finished a foundation degree in Renewable Energy Technologies and am now doing a full degree in Renewable Energy at Camborne School of Mines.

My summer job for the last three years has been working in a pea processing plant in Kent where my parents live, driving a telehandler/forklift.

Helped in a couple of micro renewable installs and looking to set up a DIY renewable course for locals.

Lots of interests but would like to finish of my degree and get into installation, building and maintenance of micro installs.

Looking for work placement over the summer of 2009, practical minded and prepared to get hands dirty, have my own transport.  If any one has anything?

Regards

[thirteen]

go to school in forestery and add water quality as a secondary degree.

[scottsAI]

Delivered newspapers for 4yrs, Collage 1 year boring, joined Navy nuclear submarine electrician 6 yrs. Back to collage, BSEE. While in collage Manager of service department repairing DEC computers 2 yrs. GM staff engineer designed data acquisition systems 6 yrs, 6 yrs more analyzing electrical systems on vehicles and computer modeling of electro-mechanical systems of vehicles. NEC as Field Application Engineer (FAE)... found my grove 6 yrs. Analog Devices Inc FAE 6 yrs, laid off. Started Engineering consulting firm early this year, 2 employees. Built first and only wind turbine while in High school. Designed several since. Not into building, enjoy designing. NZEH looking for land to build it when laid off, steam engine, solar tracking mirrors, MPPT. Deeply into theory of how everything works. My designs are unusual, rarely follow anything, always work meeting expectations. Like helping others understand how things work. 100W solar panel, have not gotten around to installing. Battery backup system for my many SETI computers and house power for 2 days.

[tmcmurran]

HSE/Safety Coordinator at a Canadian Oilsands Site till I saw the damage we were doing to the planet first hand. I have the following degree's B.Sc, Electrical Engineering, from Queens University Kingston Ontatio, and a MA in Environmental/Occupational Health and Safety.

Most employment has been in the oil and gas industry with my recent posting till I woke up is outlined below.

ATCO Cogen/Utilities Area included two GE 7EA Gas Turbines, two Deltak HRSG's, two FW Auxiliary Boilers, Atlas Copco Air Compressor Plant, RO Water Treatment Process, Natural Gas Reducing Station, Cogen Electrical systems, Foxboro Process Control systems, Cogen Steam/Condensate Systems and pressure vessels/piping, Raw Water Pumps/Pump houses and systems, Fire Water Pumps and systems, 25 kV. and above Electrical systems, Electrical Switchyard and equipment, Emergency Power Generators, Steam and Condensate systems, and Process Heat Exchangers, as well as some minor auxiliary systems.  Other areas included in my area of supervision included the main laboratory safety, and chemical disposal.  Main warehouse to insure correct compliance for storage and inventory control. Monitoring the environmental management system (EMS) to ensure compliance with certification in accordance with the ISO 14001 standard (That was a farse)  Feel good corporate line to feed to the public and shareholders.

As you can see I know high voltage, but have been banging my head at times with RE terms and limits.

Now out of that indusrty, and have our home based business run off-grid since day one. ;-)

[Mary B]

27 years as an electronic tech fixing consumer to industrial. To much heavy lifting left me disabled so now a full time college student :-)

[thefinis]

Hmmm 56 years on this planet. Lived in west Texas most of that time. Been farming and ranching most of my life. Played with computers since high school when it was key punch cards and programming with wires. First personal computer a Commandor 64 with a huge 64k of memory to play with. Have done lots of things both before and after coming home to run the family stock farm. Some of them were remodeling on homes, ran a stocking crew nights at a grocery store, owned a contracting business that did commercial remodels, Ranger for a Girl Scout camp down in the Texas hill country for several years where I did almost anything asked including run a public water system, now working as a tech for a water conservation district where I test water samples, check wells, aquifer levels etc. Operated stock farm while doing most of the other jobs. Wife says farming and ranching a hobby not a job as you are supposed to make money at a job.

Started looking into wind back in the 80's with first oil crunch. Have learned so much here mostly that the research and figuring to get a design PERFECT before building was largely wasted effort. Reality really takes control when you start to build. Vawts are my pet project but for bigger output hawts win. I could make pretty good money building vawts as yard art but now that I took on the job with the water district weekends are for working on the farm. Co-op electric company squashed my plans for grid tie wind farm with a policy of not buying excess power will only buy from their contracted supplier. Have land, wind, sun and idiots at power company. Hoping/waiting on breakthrough on batteries or some other form of power storage.

Finis

[Bruce S]

Quite a nice turn out.

Just a wee bit over the century mark:-)

Shade tree mechanic early on, went through ARMY in 70s as diesel mech. & early 80s as Jack of all trades,  and loved most of it. Still hands on diesel dude:-)

Have had the good fortune of visiting 5 of the 7 continents and interacting with life styles ranging from too poor to own dirt to entire home(s) made of marble, including 1 for each wife :-) theirs not mine.

A short in a 660Vac switch ended the mechanical days in a heart beat, found a new niche in computers back in the days of main frames with a whopping 64 byte memory and wire wrap (PDP 11/73).

20+ years in the medical electronics field and still learning.

My love is my family, Hobbies? roses, Alky and friends.

Bruce S

 

[Bigwheel]

Hi, I'd have to say I've been lucky over the years and haven't ventured far from the train.  My first real job was working in the dairy industry.  A love that has never left my soul.  After that, went to college and got a assoicates to be a machinist and a B.S. in Manufacturing Engineering.  I kind of joined the two and servied and apprientship to become a Journeyman Toolmaker pushing 15 years now.  Basically, work in the production areas as a lead, taking flat steel and turning it into deep drawn stampings.  Part science, Part watchmaker.  That's another whole story!  When it comes to the R.E. field, I can remember as a kid looking thru and reading my father's Mother Earth News magizines and getting the itch then.  After a 20 year window, I finally decided to take the plundge.  Not only do something better for my family but also for the environment.  I installed six solar panels on the roof of the house and plan to have the wind genny up and running soon.  If it wasn't for this board, the possiblity of these projects would of probably never come to the light of day.  A big thanks to all the help.  Chad  

[tnhomestead]

49, learned to program on punched cards for the USAF, been a programmer, dishwasher, trucker, do woodturning, rebuilding a house on 22 acres off grid. Oh spent a lot of wasted nights bouncing!

[taget]

Commercial Refrigeration HVAC tech, in the Upper Peininsula of Michigan.

[RandomJoe]

A fascinating range of occupations!

I have an EE degree, and realized fairly quickly I didn't want a "desk job" or something where all I did was design.  For the last 12 1/2 years I have been designing and installing commercial HVAC control systems.  I get the best of both worlds - layout and design work, AND I get to wire/install/startup.  (Nothing quite like "flipping the switch" on a shiny new control system and seeing an entire building come to life!)

Outside that, I'm a ham radio operator, like riding my recumbent bicycle (and sometimes combine the two), and have a fancier computer network in my house than many businesses.

[motoman465]

Todd here.  38 years young and hailing from northeast PA, I have been an auto mechanic for almost the last decade.  Before that I mainly worked as security at some local plants.  I was also in the Army for a little over three years as a Cannon Crewmember(field artillery).  

[Bruce S]

ALL;

 One of these days, I will actually learn to read my own posts BEFORE I click on post:->

Not even near the century mark!! little more than 1/2 the way though.

Cheers

Bruce S

[Madscientist267]

The name is Steve, 34% of a century mark (my glass level is 50%, in contrast to those with a psychological bias), and I live in Virginia, USA, just outside of Richmond.

I became a bonifide computer tech 5 years ago, at which point I considered myself successful at converting 16hr/day in front of monitor w/ not so steady pay into 8hr/day w/ steady pay + 8hr/day still w/o steady pay... let me do some math here.. carry the .. yeah.. I'm now like 33% efficient. Hey, a guy's gotta sleep, don't he?

Electronics and Computer hobbyist for 25+ years now; started with electronics at 5 when LED's were just starting to diversify (I remember getting excited over green), and could kinda be considered to start in computers at about the same time - someone mentioned punch tape and such... My introduction was holding the 3/4 reels of magnetic tape while being held up in the air myself by my Dad, and pushing the button that started the 'magic vacuum' that sucked the lead end into the drive. Best memory of that time was an ink jet plotter that printed out a fairly low-res (but full color) image of a male Mandrill Baboon, which took up the entire spool of tape! It was a pretty amazing thing at the time; a powerful demonstration of what a multi-million dollar computer could pull off... LOL I also saw the results of someone's dare to back it up on punch card... Jeez - anyone who has seen any amount of data stored this way is less likely to gripe about hard drive space - thats all I got to say about that!

From there, age 7 brought me into Apple ][e, TRS-80's and inevitably a Tandy-1000, which I didn't take out of service until 1992, when 'the internet' was the mega-buzz-word of the time, and my friend had a couple of pentium pros... Time to upgrade!

I still collect old computers, and antique electronics. I'm also in the process of partially restoring an antique console stereo, and using it's power amp as a template for my own high power version of itself.

RE has been a fascination since my introduction to solar cells as a kid, but I haven't really done much to go very far with it just yet. The wife and I just bought our first house, so let the modding begin! I'm rather fascinated by the axial alternators and the amount of power coming from such a small device. Neo magnets sure are a far cry from what we played with on the fridge as kids, eh?

I'm looking forward to playing with this stuff a lot more here in the near future, and learning a lot in the process.

Steve

[oldmil]

18 years as a forester so far (norther Wisconsin, USA).  Never once regretted getting into this profession.  Great career if you have jobs available in your area or you are willing to move.  Take as many computer (GIS) classes as possible.  More and more of the profession deals with computers/gps/gis.  I'd imagine all forestry colleges are now fucusing on the computer aspect, unlike when I was in school.

Good luck if you go into the field.

Oldmil

[bj]

     Real job?  I guess none now--retired.  By trade, a mechanic, and a

welder.  Worked 25 years as a chemical plant operator.  Have always been

a Gearhead.  Still am, and build engines (hot rod type) for fun and

extra bucks.  I think the local police may hate me though.

     I am not sure I have seen a post generate this many replies in

this quick a time.  Interesting.

     bj

[domwild]

Perth, Western Australia. Retired IT lecturer. Still working on my 150 acre (60 hectare) bluegum plantation and trying to get 50,000 trees to grow again for the second harvest after a fire and in a waterlogged area.

Interests: Software for mills, teaching myself electronics through the various fora (forums), changing Timken bearings on the front hubs of 30-year old Landrover, which were full of sand and water and other mechanical marvels.

[Catch66]

Catch66 here, Live in Montana, grew up on a farm in the Mid west.

Have 4 grandchildren. have worked as service manager, mechanic on Motorcycles, Snow machines, & Hvac mainly furnaces,EMT for local Ambulance Crew.. Retired after 26 years with a Utility company, Mechaniced for 18 years on Natural gas Compressors,then worked in a Liquid processing plant and Operator.Till retiring.

Since retirement worked as Service Tech with Orkin pest control." became interested in Solar project's "when Son gave us a 365 IBM computer then with the help of dial up internet found renewable very interesting, just finished building a DHW system,which is now on roof. and presently starting wind hobby.Love Fly fishing, being with Grandkids and Family.

[Kwazai]

Mike here. 48 YO. I design wood roof and floor trusses for a living- mostly 3D solid model cadd type work. Graduated BSME 1985 from NCState. been interested in all forms of alternative energy.

L8r

Mike

[fcfcfc]

www.WeAreSolar.com

Before that and the Y2K downsize, 30+ years in I.T., everything from programming to networks from the ground up, micro, mini and mainframe, remember IBM 360's and punch card programming and the Wang calculator... currently have a home LAN, IBM eServer, gigabit cards etc.. many un-finished inventions and a 100 things that need to be finished... have a final energy goal for my house.. getting there slowly....