Who am I and how did I reach this point?

Hi. My name is Gary King. I am currently based in Alberta Canada, but have lived several other places during my life, all in Canada. Currently my wife and I live in a motorhome and travel "where the wind takes us".

My father, a journeyman electrician,  had his own electrical contractor business. I was always interested in electronics and as soon as I was tall enough to climb up on a stool at my father's work bench, at about 5 years old, I was watching how he repaired radios and televisions. My dad quickly taught me what I could touch as well as what I should not put my fingers on, but children being children, when he wasn't around I had to find out for myself... and he was right, of course.

By the time I was in grade 5, I had enough electrical knowledge that my father had me work with him at customers houses, wiring and rewiring houses. My summers were spent that way until grade 11, when my dad was hired as the head electrician for a large company in Saskatchewan. At first they were building a vegetable oil processing plant. That first summer I was an electrician's helper wiring that huge building. I learned a lot about electricity and wiring from my dad through those years. I sometimes wished that I had paid more attention when he was teaching me about motors and winding motors. Today I find that I am weak in that area and have to spend time learning and understanding it. While working with electricity, I discovered that I did not want to become an electrician, so I went on a different career path, that of a journeyman machinist. At least I would not have to work outside and freeze in the winter with this profession.

My first job was as an instrument maker/machinist at the University of Saskatchewan in the Engineering building. The engineering students and professors would bring in drawings of the equipment they wanted us to build for them. Sometimes they even worked the way they were drawn, but other times we had to modify the ideas to make the equipment work properly. The shop I worked in also had an electronic technician who taught me a lot about practical electronics and how to design electronic circuits. This took place from 1962 to 1974 prior to the advent of personal computers and prior to the electronics of today.

I started repairing computers back in 1968 at the University. In those days the computers were about the size of a large 4 door fridge and they had a 'huge' 4K of memory. Today there are hardly any programs that are that small even on our iphones and android smart phones. These computers had wire wrap terminals with miles of wire connecting everything together. Today our digital watches have more computing power than those first computers without the wires. The first computers were used for doing calculations only. That was all the programmers of the day could get them to do. Some of the larger  computers had to run in air conditioned rooms that were dust free.Years later I replaced one of these giant machines with a desk top computer that had far more memory capacity and storage capacity than its big brother and did not have to be sitting in an air conditioned room.

I stayed in the computer field for many years repairing, programing and building computers and computer networks. Then life took hold and I moved into other areas. Several careers later I retired from the work force at age 67. For the past 2 years I have spent my time pursuing my interest in Alternative Energies.

This blog is a record of my ongoing research and studies.