OK, I'll play.
I'm 50 and married (for 25 years - to the same woman
) with 3 boys
(ages 24, 22, 14). I'm English and I have perfect teeth
I moved to the USA in 1992 with my wife and two (then) small boys (the thrid was born here). There's no way you'd ever get me to move back there now.....
Professionally, I decided to follow the electronics route and get rich rather than become a poor musician. I don't regret that decision as I have done very well in electronics. Currently, I'm Principal RF Engineer for a small startup company in Santa Clara, CA. I'm the sole hardware guy here. I'm currently designing a range of new 802.11n WLAN access point products for the enterprise wireless LAN market.
Marconi Radar put me through college. After I graduated from Southampton University I stayed in the military radar industry for 11 years, the first two years of which I spent in the Sultanate of Oman installing, comissioning and repairing radars. Then, when the bottom fell out of the military market in the late 80's, I went into semiconductors on the applications side, then into the engineering/systems design side of things. In my recent past I designed WLAN routers/access points and client products for the likes of Linksys, Netgear, Buffalo, and I designed the Apple Airport Extreme WLAN card (three generations of) and their access point (the UFO looking device).
As long as I can remember, I have been a musician of sorts. I started out on the trumpet (I could have played professionally, apparently
). At 14, I taught myself to play the piano and have been mainly a keyboard player ever since. I designed and built my first music synthesizer, from scratch, in 1976. Today, I have an extensive home studio with tons of keyboards and modules as well as a set of V-drums
(Jardini). I also have a several guitars: a nice Martin SWD, a PRS Santana SE, and a Dean "Edge One" (Korean) bass guitar, all of which I have so far been unsuccessful in mastering....fat fingers is my main problem
I have also been a woodworker for as long as I can remember. I get it from my grandfather, who used to carve wonderful bird and animal figures. I have a really nice workshop, albeit too small by miles
(Dave's Wooden Wonders) . I learned how to do marquetry about 5 years ago, and in the last 3 years have developed and refined my methods using a laser engraving machine to cut the wood. I was seeking a more interesting substrate for my marquetry work and decided that it would be guitars. So, that's how come I'm here, learning as fast as I can, and about 3/4 the way through building my first one.....
On top of all that, I play squash racquets 2 or 3 games a week, so if any of you are down this way and want a game, give me a holler......
Cheers,
Dave F.
Edit: I just went back and read the whole thread. Aren't we a bunch of
OLd
Farts! Especially Waddy....man, you are OLD!!!