Got a physics degree at the U. of Tennessee Knoxville in 1980 and went to work as a Fortran programmer, Applied Research Labs. Since I was going to program, I decided I may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, went back to school & got a Masters in Computer Science at U. of Texas at Dallas in 1984. Worked 3 or 4 years for IBM as a C/UNIX systems programmer, several years for Microsoft first on the backoffice team, then as a QA engineer on the Visual Basic team, finally 8 years as a technical writer for the Windows Device Driver kit team. For last 6 years have managed a small nearshore consultancy that hires Mexican engineers to do web app work, but my sons run the programming team. I do not work in a technical capacity, except as an Excel VBA consultant. I'm mostly retired.