Who Is This Geek?
Hi! I'm Steve Riggins, and I'm living life free!
Hobbies
I enjoy writing poetry, writing short stories, hanging out with my friends and of course, gadgets. I like watching movies (I own a few, here is the list) I am learning to hike, I don't exercise enough and I like to play games like Magic and Scrabble, though my vocabulary needs improvement.
Life Story
I started writing software on my TRS-80 Model I around 1980. My parents then bought me an Atari 800 which was the cats meow with only the Apple II as major competition.
During high school I learned Pet 2001 Basic and wrote the usual grading applications and simple games. In my last year of high school I was given a Macintosh 128 and I've been a Mac Bigot ever since.
Using Microsoft BASIC (The only occurrence of the M-Word here) I wrote a spreadsheet application in the early summer of 1984. We then took my 128K Mac on a family trip across the nation. We went through 117 degree heat in Needles, CA, bugs in Texas, Nashville, Missouri (where my Dad is from) and back home. All the while, we used the Mac, in the drivers seat of the motor home, to track mileage of both our vehicle and our traveling companions. It worked great! The test of the original Macs rigidity came in Missouri at my Grandmother Rose's house. The Mac was on the drivers seat when a tornado hit. The storm passed about 25 miles away but needless to say, there was a tremendous amount of rain and wind! After the storm we left the house to survey damage. Everything was fine except we left the window over the Mac open! We tipped him on his side and out poured more water than I'd ever wanted to see in my lifetime! We used a hair dryer for three hours blowing warm air through the vents. When I was satisfied that all must be dry, we powered him on. Bing! That was the best performing Mac I've ever owned!
After a stint in community college I was asked to join The Voyager Company to write some drivers for a yet-released videodisc player, the Sony 1200. I did so, rushed off to Florida to demo them for Apple at the S.A.L.T. convention and met Linda Stone. If you don't know Linda, well, you ought too!
I worked for Voyager for four and a half years writing our video disc drivers, the VideoStack, the AudioStack, countless projects which I never cared to put into my diary, Beethoven's 9th, Mozart, Poetry In Motion, Ephemeral Films and had my hands in just about every other software project to some small degree.
In October of 1992 I left Voyager for the Bay Area and Kaleida Labs. I worked on ScriptX and a Director Converter for it. In November of 1994 I decided to rejoin Voyager to work on cross platform tools and titles.
While at Voyager I did the Windows port to "This is Spinal Tap," a CD-ROM covering the movie, and a custom, cross platform engine for "A Night to Remember" which used QuickTime for it's UI elements and aside from the small layer, was 100% cross platform.
In November, 1996 I left Voyager to help start Night Kitchen. While at Night Kitchen I helped oversee engineers in Bulgaria and was the technical yes/no person on the project. Can we build this in time? Should we? That job taught me a lot about management, and why most people dislike it!
In February 2000 I became officially single.
August 2001 saw me selling my house in San Jose, being the last employee to leave Night Kitchen and moving to Portland Oregon. I am currently finishing up the port of TK3 to OS X (I am doing it pro bono to honor my contract) and will be in the job market again soon. So if you know anyone around Portland who needs a Mac geek, let me know!
Since moving to Portland I have taken it easy - I am enjoying the Portland Macintosh Users Group (PMUG), I really enjoy MacCamp and even helped a friend teach a class about iMovie this past fall.
I am working on enlarging the circle of friends I have. I would like 2003 to bring many new wondrous thinks into my life. I am keeping my eyes open for the one job, that one person, those wonderful friends and all experiences that help me grow, becoming more in tune with myself and hopefully a better person.
I am contracting for Night Kitchen on a Smalltalk version of TK3. I am so excited about this project! We're finally seeing computers capable of running interpreted languages well enough to do sophisticated projects in them and maybe, just maybe, some of this content will be readable one hundred years from now!
Dating
Yes, I am single and would love to meet new people! If you are reading this, you are net savvy which is a big plus. I am 6'0, beautifully bald, passionate and sensual, Disneyland loving and garden railroad fan.
Interests include sci-fi, movies, hiking, golf, watching sunsets, spontaneous trips, a little cooking, hanging with friends and great comedy.
So why date a Macintosh geek? I am introspective, non-perfect, caring, considerate, I listen to criticism well, am sarcastic, playful, responsible, a great listener and I am just fun to hang with! I don't smoke, drink nor do drugs. Thus I am not much of a bar fly, but I would take dancing lessons with ya!
My friends tell me that I am great with kids - I have no plans for my own, but if mother nature decides that should happen with the right person, it would be a wonderment of joy.
I believe in friendship first and let that work into a relationship if it is meant to be.
Geek Code
Yes, I have a geek code, and it is:
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GCS d- s+:+ a C+++ B U++ P++ L+ E- W+++ N++ o K- w++ O- M++ V-- PS PE Y+ PGP+
t+ 5 X++ R* tv+ b DI+ D++ G+ e* h r y+ z+
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
Steve Riggins
July, 2003
© Copyright 1997-2002 Steve Riggins. Graphics by Andrew Duncan.
