This is Don's Profile

(as of Feb/2021) best viewed full screen

This page holds info from my family tree data, where I (aka "Jamie" or "DJ" which appear here & there) share several events; you can also visit my story or my Bio report (which was built in the 1990's) for a more concise view?

As "Baby Jamie" (which was my childhood name / likely from my Dad), I lived in my Mum & Dad's upstairs flat at 10 Carlton Road in Boscombe, Bournemouth between my birth in late July & September 1955; visit my eDiary for details; scroll up for more info? As a relevant thread, Bournemouth was part of Hampshire when I was a child & was politically moved to Dorset in 1974

We then moved to the house at 70 Elmes Road in Moordown that my Dad's father had purchased for us; I grew up there for 14+ years until early January 1971…many thoughts come from those years -- more are coming!

As a handful of my many, many childhood facts, around February 1958, Mum would sit me down in the early afternoon to listen to the Daily Radio Show on BBC 4…those opening words still resonate clearly in my head after more than 50 years: "Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin…" visit this historical website?

The commencement of an enthusiastic reader of fictional & factual books followed in 1959…Mum had read books & stories to me since I was born, and I often got to be at the library in Winton with her / I so loved those boy's adventure books! The library was built by Carnegie in Bournemouth ~1959; see the library here; a snap of the reading room from the 50's is also attached to my tree data which I can share if you're interested?

A couple of early 60's "not-mine" events do need a mention…the Cuban missile crisis that had the world on the very edge of being gone (see the Russian submarine story and reference data) and the JFK assassination, which is still an apparent mystery! My stillborn sister Dawn arrived in August of 1963… about 4 months after the disaster, my Mum unexpectedly left home for a few weeks with my “Uncle Peter”…

Moving forwards a little (sourced from thoughts that I caught when thinking about Dad on Father's Day in 2016), the Silk Jacket that Dad had brought home from his visit to New York in 1963 (he was the ship's cook in the Merchant Navy) was as a gift for me at the age of 8…Just a few days later, I managed to take it off while playing over at Redhill Common (where it was a hot day, or so I recall) and it was then taken from the bush (or on the ground) where I had dropped it.

It never came back…it's burned into my brain how furious Dad was when I lost his gift :(

To move on, my Winton & Moordown Junior School delivered the School Streaming Examinations in March 1966.

Students were "graded" at the ripe old age of 11 to determine whether they would succeed with a Grammar School education. As the world was changing around this time, even though my scores were certainly high enough to qualify, there just wasn't enough room at the Grammar School for everyone in our town…I ended up being sent to the "G-Stream" in the Winton and Moordown Senior School (likely due to geography as much as anything) where I was eligible for O-levels there vs. just a CSE; related images are in the events at my tree.

An article of historical interest is here…

I had my very own room upstairs at 70 Elmes in 1968 or so; I was allowed to move from the small room (which went back to being storage) where I had been for several years to the back bedroom…my very own music studio! Just a lovely snap that I'd found of the room (scroll down to "My Room"?) that was almost completely mine :) It's decorated with a pebble-style wallpaper, a bed (1/2 of a set of bunk-beds), a red shirt on the chair, my neck-tie hanging on the wardrobe handle, and my "surround sound" system with a stack of singles (that I no longer possess) with various other memories <sigh>

In July 1968, my brother arrived and my work as a youngster started…many sunny summer days, spending time learning about the world of work…compliments of Dad, I suppose. I worked in the kitchen for a while at The Sea-Witch Hotel at 47 Haven Rd, Canford, Poole--a 30-minute bike ride from 70 Elmes Rd; they changed at some point to the Loch Fyne Seafood & Grill Restaurant.

I also worked with my Dad, helping to maintain gardens in Bournemouth, and I spent Saturdays at the family Tape Recorders shop in Bournemouth (which moved to the main street in Boscombe a few years later), learning about electronics; Uncle Reg taught me about transistors & such, circuits & the resistor codes with a mnemonic rhyme like "Betty Brown Runs Over Your Garden But Violet Grey Walks Gold Silver None"…view more info here?

I became 14 on a Friday in July of 1969, with no recall at all as to what kinds of gifts might have been given to me by Mum & Dad or my Uncle Peter, and whether or not there was a party…it was likely that I was just out, making trouble. My “good behavior” then started to slip further & faster as I found myself getting up to a whole lot of no good over at Redhill Common, in Kinson & at other places in and around Bournemouth… As I capture details of this 50-year-old record in late 2018, they aren't really stored in my head, just from some threads that relate to various sources; many of these may show up later.

To end my collection of youthful idiocies, I was expelled from the Winton & Moordown Senior school in mid-September 1970…the 2nd kid to be expelled (Jules Stravinsky was the 1st) from 5G for being a problem child.
Am guessing that my Dad knew not what to do when this happened…perhaps the final straw on the camel's back for him? Who will ever know…?

Then, on December 15th, 1970 I was taken across town (at the age of 15) by my Dad to the British Army Recruitment Office at 244 Holdenhurst Rd in Bournemouth, just 10 minutes from my childhood home at 70 Elmes Rd where he signed me up for a stint in the Army; visit my eDiary for some history?

I was then posted to Soltau & lived in the barracks a year or so before Jane & I were married; our 1st car was in May of 1976, where Jane's income at the barracks made it available.

Then, in August of 1976 my 1st major life-changing event arrived…I was out playing soldiers in the woods (with Sgt. Gary Coude) near Stadtverwaltung, about 50km SE of Hanover in Bad Salzdetfurth, Hildesheim, Niedersachsen, Germany, where I ended up taking a swan dive from our 432 (trying to release coolant from the overheated radiator), fracturing both elbows & wrists…this changed the rest of my natural-born life. I ended up at BMH Hanover ~6 weeks after the accident (in October 1976), where I had surgery & other treatments.

I was then moved to BMH Greenwich (at the Royal Herbert Hospital), in January 1977 for further repairs. Jane & I spent ~3 months in a small upstairs room at Jane's parents' house in Eastleigh while I drove up to London & back every few days.

On October 10, 1977 at the Catterick Garrison, I received my medical military discharge after the Army had spent 18 months attempting to repair my elbows; was tagged at 30% disabled with their failure.

The Army then granted me my 2nd life-changing event: a 6-month period of Government-funded retraining.
I learned to become a mainframe computer field engineer at the Control Data Institute (77 Wells St, London) between September 26, 1977 & March 31, 1978. Those "innate intuitive technical skills" allowed me to graduate with a certificate that shows all aspects of the learning as straight-A's, at the top of my class…
See some background?

Jane & I then got into our 1st place outside of the military, a middle-floor flat at 103 Central Hill in Upper Norwood, West Norwood, London between October 12, 1977 & March 1978; lived there ~6 months while I rode the Tube to the CDI in London. An interesting note: the full address for this flat was captured from a copy of a letter sent to me by Kim Nott in 1977; I'd retained the envelope and found it in a storage box of photo's in perhaps 2014!

Whilst riding the Tube, I recall a moment where I simply got lucky…I think I was wearing a long brown coat and was being pushed near the door (not at all crowded in the tube) by what was likely a thug…his friend said "he's big" so perhaps that was why they didn't want to kick the sh*t out of me. Guess we'll never know!

Before I graduated from the CDI, I had started searching for work, and successfully interviewed with Burroughs Corp at the HQ of the Midland Bank at Staples Corner in London (off of the Edgeware Rd, at the North Circular Rd).

This was in early 1978 (Jan or Feb) with Tim Bowler, who assessed my mechanical abilities to disassemble & reassemble (successfully!) a huge printer transfer box which was full of rust & dust (!), with Pete Tinson (my shift boss), and others; they all liked me enough to offer me a job as a Computer Field Service Engineer with 12-hour shifts, on a 4-4-6 day/night rhythm…my new world!

Starting there in April 1978, I found the time to learn about writing code to drive devices (using Algol for "SPO-CANDE") while maintaining the mainframe CPU's & associated intelligent peripherals, with many accomplishments in my 31/2 years there.

Jane & I found and moved into an upstairs flat at 89 Fairfax Road in Haringey (which is near the Alexander Palace, which burned to the ground in 1979) to be closer to Staples Corner (just 20 minutes away). We brought our 1st house (an end-row terrace) at 19 Albany Road in Upper Edmonton in August 1978…a recent Google street view shows that it has been destroyed & rebuilt.

In October 1979 I went to the Burroughs training center in Paoli, PA for a 6-week course on the B-7700 computers… my 1st visit to the US that sadly led to my 3rd life-changing event; many, many memories / none are yet shared.

I chose a couple months later to depart to the US of A, and, having chased paperwork etc for several months, arrived at JFK, New York, on a Thursday in July of 1980…hauling a pair of heavily filled large suitcases, the contents of each were carefully filtered prior to departure (which, retrospectively, was really unhappy) that held my entire life. Picked up at the airport by wife-to-be & her sister, we got to see the Statue of Liberty more than once as she drove home to Philadelphia. My immigration was held in Washington, District of Columbia, actually at the Baltimore office.

We lived for a year+ (between July 11, 1980 & November 1981) with our son in a 4th floor apartment in Silver Spring, Montgomery, MD, chosen as part of my Burroughs transfer from the Midland bank in London to the World Bank HQ at 900 19th St NW, Washington, DC 20006.

I managed to leave Burroughs in November 1981 for Fairchild (in Germantown, MD), after stepping on some toes at the World Bank HQ…we then lived in Sterling Park, Loudoun, VA for 2 years, a rented split-level house where our 2nd son was born.

I'd had an interview at a job fair in September where I met Ted Stathis, who hired me as a non-graduate of Computer Science in any formal way. I came in as a Software Engineer & stayed for 31/2 years successfully designing/implementing embedded real-time control applications: an Avionics Recon Control Subsystem, a MIL-STD-1553 Bus Control & Monitoring Unit, the 16-Mbps Satellite TDMA Comm Encryption System & a Remote-site Diagnostics Package for a large network, and others. As Lead Engineer for teams of up to 8 SW engineers, I was responsible for overall systems & software design, the timely delivery of high-quality product software, all of the planning & coordination of my team members' work, training & technical reviews of team members & other engineers, and configuration management of all project software.

While working at Fairchild, we purchased our 1st US house in November 1983 in Germantown, MD; a newly built end-row townhouse with a basement & a communal pool, and spent ~21/2 yrs there.

In March of 1985 I started an independent business in the basement of our home, Creative Logic Software, LLC, leaving Fairchild at that time. I spent $4,000 & change on a brand-new IBM PC for my consulting business, with (literally) 250k of memory, a 132-character printer (for printing reams of code), no HDD at all (just dual floppy drives) & a text-only monitor. Pretty hard to believe, looking back!

Then, in July of 1986 I was able to gain a contract (using CLS) with the X-ray team at GE Medical Systems in Waukesha, WI and went on to a full-time role there, spending 23+ years with the General -- Black-Hat Computer Wizard, Manager, Compliance Champion, and many others…

My CLS business website (while no longer active) still shares some significant information, and some related activities over the intervening 30 years are also captured in my work history, for your enjoyment!

I moved our family to a rental house in Brookfield, WI in February 1987 for my GE work & moved again in May 1988 to Oconomowoc, a 100-year old Cape Cod with a really nice lake view (!) & access to many things. We stayed there until early 1994, when that disastrous relationship finally ended & I moved out.

My 2nd son, Alex sadly passed away in January of 2002 and is remembered here and with a tombstone from his mother in the Oconomowoc Cemetery.

My current spouse & I began our new lives in 1994 and were married in March of 1997, celebrating our vows on a patio of the Loewes Hotel on Coronado Island, San Diego.

We rented half of a jointly-occupied 2-family lake house at Lake Keesus for the summer in 1996, and around my birthday we purchased & moved into a house near Sussex, a large 4-bedroom house on an acre. Nice woods, basement, etc where we had our lives for many years…

We then built our new 3-bedroom house on 1.5 acres in the same area & moved into the house in late 2004…

After 10+ years there, I was renamed as "Grampy Don" by Maxwell Bridges in November 2014 and we then moved south for our grandkids to a place that's near Atlanta, Georgia…we're still living there as of the writing of this report!

Please visit my eDiary for the latest news updates?

A final thought about myself…today’s Global "Belief Systems" actually drive each individual towards (or away from) religious perceptions, all of which are learned before you’re knee-high--I grew up in a seaside town in the Southern England (view place info above ?) with nothing but negative views from my Dad about religion…

Passing on from my local senior school (without graduating) to a northern-England military school in 1970, and eventually on to America, my travels have blessed me with perspectives on such things as religion, life & historical things from my meeting, knowing & loving the many, many people in countries around the world.

Best in life? To be outside with Mother Nature whenever possible, walking/biking/driving a convertible, camping, fishing, etc…also helping with the wife’s delightful gardens (that were) around our little house on a hill in south-eastern Wisconsin -- we live today near Atlanta, Georgia where our gardens are a delight!

When being outside is difficult, relaxation is achieved by watching movies, history, nature or geographic shows on our cable-based TV system (DVR included), by scanning & sharing global news from my PC (Google news) in the early am, sometimes by simply reading and listening–Ray Kurzweil’s work continuously entrances my views, as do observations about certain people that are leaders in parts of America, yet lie to your face on a daily basis!

I am also passionate about working with computers in many ways, from fixing, fiddling (& fighting!!) with various aspects of them to teaching folks about them, as well as creating tools/applications & web-sites; my (now closed) Creative Logic Software, LLC business shares some examples of this…

To close out this page (yes, many “bits of my life” were skipped--visit my dynamic page for more?), as the direct author of each and every person in this tree (some of whom were inherited/some imported), along with their notes, sources/citations (each of which have been downloaded to my local tree data), some quotations, episodic comments, pictures and such (yes, for *each and every* item), the "three of me" would like to share that We Sure Do Like To Write!!

Regards, Don (along with George & Nod) who may be "DJ" in these pages…

Feel free to share your thoughts, comments or criticisms etc via eMail? Cheers!

Some relevant advisories: (1) my family tree data is All Rights Reserved © April/1988 – date Don Shave, and (2) as legal issues can surround such things as my published advice & opinions, my Privacy Policy & Disclaimers page is a mandatory addition…please review?

Created in Sep-2019 & last updated Mar-2022
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