User:Stargzer
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Stargzer (talk) 22:06, 13 October 2009 (UTC) Obviously, Astronomy is a hobby of mine. My handle is spelled "Stargzer" because there are days when I'm not sure if I'm missing an "a" or two "e's." I picked the ID Stargzer for my first Internet account back before Internet Explorer even existed, back when most access was through smaller, dial-up ISPs like Digex rather than behemoths like Comcast, when Unix shell accounts and Gopher and WAIS were the main means of searching and Lynx was the web browser of choice for character-oriented terminal applications, back when the only alternative to dial-up was a fractional T1 line, when DSL and Cable Internet were still over the horizon, when the Commodore Amiga was still sold and could run rings around MS DOS and Windows ...
But that's enough of ancient history for now ...
Stargzer is a frequent user and occasional editor of Wikipedia, mostly correcting bad links. For instance, one recent page I read had a listing of an author's books. When I clicked on one particular title, the page for that title was a redirect to a page about an album (music) on which the title of one of the tracks was the same as the title of the author's book. There was no relation whatsoever to the book that I could see. Sloppy composition and editing!
In real life Stargzer, who has a BA in Chemistry, spent over 30 years doing datacomm in one form or another for two different but related Agencies of the US Government. He can still tell you how to make an RS-232 cross-over cable for async or sync (just remember to set the DTE side for External Transmit Clock for a synchronous connection), can expound on the difference between standard bisync and HASP bisync, and remember most of the important Hayes dialing commands. For the last several years he has moved into Physical Security for the same employer, working feverishly with others to implement HSPD-12 in his OpDiv.
Outside of work I find refuge from my wife in reading, mainly sci-fi & fantasy, science, and history. I speak French bad enough to aggravate a Frenchman, and can work my way slowly through Latin with a dictionary and a grammar. I'm also trying to survive our "special needs child," a 5-year-old Basset-Beagle mix (a Bad-ass Basgle, rhymes with Nazgûl) who thinks he's the Alpha Male and suffers from Separation Anxiety, Food Aggression, Posession Aggression, and probably a few others. He thinks he owns my wife and has to protect her from me. I've been bitten so many times that I feel I have too much blood invested in this relationship to get rid of him. All I can say is that his ancestors must have a lot of pull with St. Francis of Assisi. Having lived with four other dogs and know several others during my lifetime, I am convinced that dogs are four-footed, fanged, furry two-year olds, often with a touch of some combination of ADD, OCD, ODD, and Autism.
Sooner or later I'll get the hang of Wikipedia's arcane editing syntax. When that happens, watch out! ;- )
Until then, remember: if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate!
Stargzer (talk) 07:28, 12 October 2009 (UTC)