Some things about me:

Robert Malcolm Ellington
Born 5:00am EST 18 August 1950, Richmond, Indiana
Father Clifton Malcolm, "Mac" (1913-1993)
Mother Thelma Mae (Huffman), Thelma (1921-)
One brother, Darl Ray (1952-), married to Cheryl; they have
   two sons (Cory, Jeff), one daughter (Kim) [all over 21]

Grew up in the church, First Church of God (headquartered in Anderson IN). Sang in choir and solos at home and regionally.

Interested in math and science in school, usually first in class in these subjects through high school. I have been a member of Mensa and of the One in a Thousand Society; my IQ is most commonly measured at 151.

Started on trombone in 7th grade, switched to tuba in 8th; played in Indiana All-State Band, was 1st-chair Concert Band and Outstanding Bassman (marching band) at Purdue; performed in Osaka for Expo '70 World's Fair; also played with Marine Corps field bands around the U.S. and Pacific for over two years, including performances at Mardi Gras and the Indianapolis 500 (three times total, twice with Purdue.) Have visited every state except North and South Dakota (I'll get there someday.)

Served in the U.S.M.C. for just over seven years; Honorably Discharged as E-6, Staff Sergeant. Was a Military Policeman working in a Correctional Facility (brig, jail) for about six months, then band (2+ years). Went into Military Intelligence for final four years as a Photographic / Imagery Interpreter looking at aerial and satellite imagery to see what was down there — VERY interesting work! Also planned and briefed aerial recon missions. Deployed four times to USS Midway and toured the Pacific and Indian Oceans... aircraft carrier operations at night are unforgettable. Lived on Okinawa for a year. Have lived in Japan (Iwakuni, just south of Hiroshima) during deployments totaling about one year. Have visited Korea (Seoul, Pusan twice), Philippines (Subic Bay four times, Manilla once), Singapore, Hong Kong, Perth Australia for five days (and I did not have to pull duty during that time; great sandwich shops!), and Karachi. Once spent 30 days without sighting land.

Began at Jeppesen Sanderson, Inc., Englewood, CO, in June 1980. In early 1982 was selected with four others to serve on development team to produce the first computer-generated aeronautical charts using Intergraph design stations. Served as Senior Graphics Support Analyst (troubleshooter) in a two-shift high-intensity production environment using two VAX/VMS CPUs. Left in April 1986 to start my own company (see below).

Married to Diana Lynn Bettger July83 until Feb91; one adopted daughter, Michelle, who made me a grandfather in 1995. They all still live in Denver.

Have made my living with computers since 1982; started a company called H & E Concepts™ (HEC) with Chris C. Havelick in Denver in 1986 (until Dec91) selling computer software to large companies (NASA, Dow, duPont) and governments (U.S., Saudi Arabia, South Africa). Our flagship product was DEFRAG™, a disk defragmenter for Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) VAX minicomputers running VMS. We had over 200 customers in nine countries by 1989. The computers our software ran on were becoming obsolete by late 1990. We also sold shareware for PCs — our SoliCard™ solitaire game was a big seller well into 1992. We did one called WordStalk™ which solves cryptograms, anagrams, jumbles, plays hangman, word searches based on pattern and form, etc... I still run it under Vista!

Returned home to Richmond on Christmas Eve of 1992 as my father was ill; he passed over in July, 1993. Lived with Mom for a while afterwards — did some computer consulting, and worked on a dairy farm helping with the milking and during calving season.

1Aug94 began as System Administrator at Morrisson-Reeves (Wayne Township Public) Library [MRL] in Richmond, IN.  I was hired just a month before their first server arrived — I thought it would be a DEC VAX/VMS system: it was a DEC OSF-1 (UNIX) machine... steep learning curve! — Dynix (Provo, UT) library system software (including VMark UniVerse which made the UNIX look like a PICK system) on DEC Alpha OSF-1 platform networked to DOS and Windows 3.1 PCs and Wyse 150 dumb terminals. Migrated to Dynix Integrated Library System (ILS) under uniVerse layered on Dell 2300 running Windows NT Server 4.0, intranet on separate NT server, PIX firewall / DMZ, Sun (Ultra) Solaris server for Web / email. PC systems have evolved from Win3.11 through Win95 / 98,ME / 2000 to Windows XP and Vista. Dynix was bought by Ameritech Library Systems which was bought by Epixtech which was then repurchased by Dynix Library Systems. Dynix then merged with Sirsi to become SirsiDynix, and in late 2007 we migrated to their Unicorn system. In November, 2008 we migrated to their Symphony ILS (Oracle, SQL) with Enterprise Portal Solution (EPS) Rooms as the web browser-based user interface. The current platform is Dell 2800 and 2850 servers running Windows Server 2003. I installed much of infrastructure. I develop scripts using APIs, SQL, WSH, VBScript, Javascript, CGI, ASP, Perl and QBASIC (still great for the quick hack.)

Tounge-in-cheek:  How to troubleshoot equipment at work.

Other jobs: Built school buses at the factory here in town (Wayne Works [Div] in Richmond, IN) for over two years total (I was a Utilityman in Primary working for Jerry Bourne); sold Kirby vacuum cleaners, sold Encyclopeadia Brittanica (both measured in weeks!); drove a taxicab in Orange Co. and Long Beach, CA for about six months. Also repaired/rebuilt hydraulic injection presses for a few months. Various and occasional "temp jobs"... have never drawn unemployment.

Associations (not yet mentioned) to which I have belonged: Delta Sigma Phi (social fraternity), Kappa Kappa Psi (band honorary fraternity), Association for Reasearch and Enlightment (Edgar Cayce, Virginia Beach, VA), American Society of Photogrammetry, Marine Corps League, American Legion, Boy Scouts (Star) and Explorer (Medical) Scouts, others I can't remember right now. Only the two fraternities and the Marine Corps are lifetime memberships; am still a member at the Marine Corps League and the American Legion. At the local American Legion "Harry Ray" Post 65 (Indiana), I am the Webmaster and have created and maintain AL65IN.ORG.

Nicknames I have had: Duke (because of my last name and being in band), Elly, Ace, 151, Bobert, Froggy, Elephant Ears, Four-Eyes (the last three were from childhood; also, as my brother reminded me, Ham Bone)... and last, and my favorite, Obiwan (from the ladies at the library where I work because I sometimes do magical things with their computers, like fixing them just by touching the keyboard — once I just waved my hand at one and it started to work; I got the nickname Obiwan shortly thereafter!). I now use it as my handle, spelled "0-BE-1", pronounced "Obiwan".

Favorite Authors: I'll mention only a very few... Patrick O'Brian and his Aubrey/Maturin novels. There are a number of other authors I greatly enjoy who write about the world and life during the Great Age of Sail, but PO'B is my favorite. Robert Heinlein is by far my favorite science fiction writer. Selected works by other authors (in no particular order): The Foundation trilogy by Isaac Asimov; J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy; Dune by Frank Herbert; almost anything by Margaret Atwood (I haven't read all of hers yet — I have to take a break from her after reading one of them); The Stand by Stephen King; The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas; The Fire Hunter by Jim Kjelgaard (now out of print; I have had my copy for over 50 years and read it so many times it is falling apart); all of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (I also have the 14 movies with Basil Rathbone and the 41 episodes with Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes — I wish someone would make a decent version of A Study in Scarlet); Tom Clancy, John Grisham, Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. I could extend this list, but I said "only a very few."