Who are you?

[fcwilt]

Hi,
 
I'm not entirely sure who I am on some days.
 
But today I am a 62 year old retired programmer. I live at Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia, USA. I like reading (love my kindle), boating, flying RC planes, model railroading, programming (duh), home automation, old movies and more.
 
My home is automated with an Elan g! system including lighting, irrigation, hvac system, security system, security cameras, home theater. I purchased and tried Homeseer, Main Lobby and CQC. CQC is great but the Elan g! system, while more limited, does everything I want and is so simple to install and maintain. Maybe someday I will try to duplicate the current system with CQC but have other things on my plate at the moment.
 
I installed a simple system based around an HAI Omnipro II for my daughter but it just does some very basic things like turning on some lights at night. Someday (should I live so long) I am going to expand her system.
 
My current project occupying much of my time is building my first model railroad in years. Now that I am retired I have the time, space and money to do the things I wanted to do. I have combined my interest in programming by including hardware/software to allow running the railroad under computer control for display purposes.
 
I am happily married to a wonderful women who thinks I'm slightly off my rocker to do all these things. She sighs alot.
 

 

[mdonovan]

I am 52 this year. I work in IT at a hospital supporting VMware and Windows servers. My hobbies are, in no particular order, my computers, my home automation, doing home improvements (although I find I like planning and purchasing more than I like doing), gardening. I do vb.net programming also as a hobby, and have been using xAP to automate my house because I can write the "drivers" for any particular hardware. I think I'm up to 7 computers now, including 2 virtual.
 
I live in a house on 6 acres of woods, with alarms and cameras galore. Nobody gets anywhere near the house without being detected and recorded. I got broken into once, it won't happen again. Fortunately the only things my cameras have seen are deer, fox, racoons, and the occasional kitty cat.
 
Matt

 

[Dogman]

I am 49 and I work for a large Aerospace company.  I am a Mechanical Engineer but my father was an electrical contractor and I worked as an electrician for him while getting my degree.   So I am better at the nuts and bolts of installing the hardware and wiring and am a bit more challenged on the software side (Ok alot more challeged.)   The only software training besides 3 D CAD systems is taking Fortran Classes in the 80s so I am very limited that way.   My hobbies are HA,  Skiing, Sailing hanging out with my Dog and Wife (Not necessarily in that order). 
 
My HA plans are always grander then my budget and my time as I suspect most everyone else here is as well.   I am really impressed with the folks on this forum and the Charmed Quark forum for their knowledge and skill and just enjoy reading what other folks are doing and how they are solving things quickly.