--- In firebird-support@yahoogroups.com, "Clay Shannon"
<cshannon@d...> wrote:

> << I don't really have the time to load a lot of components onto

an

> already overloaded component menu and then try and sort the "Wheat
> from the chaff". Programming is a hobby which I hope to expand

into

> a business as I'm getting to old to have to spend much more of my
> life in "far-off lands" (I'm currently in Kuwait - Cairo last year
> Kenya 2003, with a "home base" of Cape Town - sounds exotic but

far

> from it).>>
>
> What do you do for work, if you don't mind me asking?
>
> Clay Shannon,
> Dimension 4 Software

Hi Clay,

First off, thanks for the info.

No, I don't mind you asking what I do. I'm a polymer chemist (I
design things called "resins" which is the glue (best simple
description) that holds the colourant on the wall, door, ceiling etc
in a paint. Also design resins for use in fibreglass applications.
23 years experience.

Had my fist PC in 1976(! - although they weren't called PC's at that
time) - an HP 9815, from memory, with "1008 program steps" (bytes)
of memory, an alphanumeric display, tape storage and thermal
printer. Cost was an 'astronomical' $3500 then. Wrote my first
program (a program for inputting raw material attributes to
calculate a lubricating oil formulation) in BASIC and was told that
the cost of the HP was recovered in 1 week due to the time savings
(such is the oil industry!). Have had PC's on and off since then
(although continuous since the 1990s). Write programs for the
companies I work for when I have the time. Anything from simple DB
apps to simple (A to D) equipment interfaces. Have decided that,
having made millions for companies designing resins for them that
it's about time I started making money for myself. Putting up my own
resin plant would cost circa $2 million (which i don't have) so
think that software is the way to go.

Regards