Autonym
Regular Member
imported post
Hey guys,
So I've been talking with you folks, virtually, for a little while now. Looking at some of your profiles, some of you have been on here forever, while others are newer.
I just started looking in to this within the last month or so, and decided to chime in here and there, and it just sorta snowballed until I now check here pretty much everyday.
I figured it might be a nice idea to do a post to tell you a bit about me. I considered doing this in the 'General Discussion' forum, but most of my posts are about Oregon, so I thought I'd just bore you folks and not the whole nationwide group.
Moderator: If this is the wrong place, sorry! Please feel free to move it.
So, about myself:
I'm 38, married, with two kids, a 14 year old daughter and a 12 year old son.
I'm a former US Army Sergeant - I've been out about 10 years now. I served 6 years as a Military Intelligence SIGINT Analyst (yeah, yeah, I know oxymoron/"Contradiction In Terms" - trust me, I've heard them all). I managed to slot between either Gulf War and instead got to go to Hungary and later Bosnia for my troubles. My last tour before separating was at Ft Meade, Maryland, the home of NSA.
I learned a lot of neat stuff at Ft. Meade, and when I left the Army I managed to easily pick up a job doing Network Security for an ISP in the SF Bay Area. After a little bit of work with that, I jumped over to a network security products manufacturer called NetScreen, which was later acquired by Juniper Networks. I still work for them now.
My current job is to figure out the latest security tricks and hacking techniques, then apply that knowledge to create signature updates for Juniper's Intrusion Detection and Prevention (IDP) line of security products. It's challenging and unique work that pays the bills. I telecommute, and therefore work out of my home with a really short commute (just a stumble down the hall) and very flexible work schedule.
We moved up to Oregon from California (yes, a transplant) about a year ago now. I currently live in a rental home in Sherwood but we own 5 acres of land up in the Chehalem Mountain area just off the north slope of Bald Peak State Park - straight north of Newberg, straight south of Hillsboro. We just signed a contract and are in the financing stage of getting a house built up there. It's pretty exciting to be so close to actually starting construction, it's almost killing me.
I'm very good with computers and network technology. I'm a second-generation computer nerd, so I come by it naturally. I like playing computer games (first person shooters ("FPS") and real-time strategy ("RTS"), mostly), stumbling through the Internet, and cleaning my guns.
I've come to realize that there's other ways to spend my time rather than be on the computer every waking moment. To some of you this may seem obvious, but it's the culmination of a 25-year experience for me. So, I've needed something to occupy my non-computing, non-family time - basically I need to get out of the house.
I have an overly strong sense of justice - I dislike seeing people "get away" with stuff they know is wrong. I also think that doing the lawful thing isn't always the same as doing the right thing.
So I discovered the Washington County Sheriff's Reserve Academy. It's free training and when successfully completed, you become a full-fledged, unpaid Sheriff's Reserve Deputy. Not doing fund raisers. Not cleaning out the precinct toilets. Actually out on patrol with the car, flashlight, and gun.
It sounds pretty cool, and so I've started to look into it. Except... they just canceled this year's (2009-2010) academy due to budget cuts, so the earliest I could attend would be in 2011, which is a real bummer. I'll have to settle for ride-alongs and maybe the Citizen's Academy until then I guess.
I just acquired my first personal handgun - a Glock 19. I chose the 19 because 9mm rounds are very common, are easier on the wrist than a .40 or .45, and the 19 is compact enough to conceal, but large enough to be reasonably accurate. It's a compromise gun, but it works well enough.
Now that I have this handgun, I'd like to use it, which is why I've been drawn to the Open Carry movement. I have a Ruger 10/22 that hardly ever comes out of the closet because I'm too busy to go shooting regularly. By Open Carrying, I'll be using my handgun quite a bit!
Anyway, that's pretty much me in a nutshell. My real name is Dave, but my handle is "Autonym" or just "Auto" for short - any/either is fine.
Nice talking with you guys. I'm looking forward to meeting some of you at Bombers this Thursday.
P.S. - "Autonym" literally means "Self-Named", or the name one gives to oneself. So using Autonym as my handle (the name I pick for myself) is a bit of a play-on-words.
Hey guys,
So I've been talking with you folks, virtually, for a little while now. Looking at some of your profiles, some of you have been on here forever, while others are newer.
I just started looking in to this within the last month or so, and decided to chime in here and there, and it just sorta snowballed until I now check here pretty much everyday.
I figured it might be a nice idea to do a post to tell you a bit about me. I considered doing this in the 'General Discussion' forum, but most of my posts are about Oregon, so I thought I'd just bore you folks and not the whole nationwide group.
Moderator: If this is the wrong place, sorry! Please feel free to move it.
So, about myself:
I'm 38, married, with two kids, a 14 year old daughter and a 12 year old son.
I'm a former US Army Sergeant - I've been out about 10 years now. I served 6 years as a Military Intelligence SIGINT Analyst (yeah, yeah, I know oxymoron/"Contradiction In Terms" - trust me, I've heard them all). I managed to slot between either Gulf War and instead got to go to Hungary and later Bosnia for my troubles. My last tour before separating was at Ft Meade, Maryland, the home of NSA.
I learned a lot of neat stuff at Ft. Meade, and when I left the Army I managed to easily pick up a job doing Network Security for an ISP in the SF Bay Area. After a little bit of work with that, I jumped over to a network security products manufacturer called NetScreen, which was later acquired by Juniper Networks. I still work for them now.
My current job is to figure out the latest security tricks and hacking techniques, then apply that knowledge to create signature updates for Juniper's Intrusion Detection and Prevention (IDP) line of security products. It's challenging and unique work that pays the bills. I telecommute, and therefore work out of my home with a really short commute (just a stumble down the hall) and very flexible work schedule.
We moved up to Oregon from California (yes, a transplant) about a year ago now. I currently live in a rental home in Sherwood but we own 5 acres of land up in the Chehalem Mountain area just off the north slope of Bald Peak State Park - straight north of Newberg, straight south of Hillsboro. We just signed a contract and are in the financing stage of getting a house built up there. It's pretty exciting to be so close to actually starting construction, it's almost killing me.
I'm very good with computers and network technology. I'm a second-generation computer nerd, so I come by it naturally. I like playing computer games (first person shooters ("FPS") and real-time strategy ("RTS"), mostly), stumbling through the Internet, and cleaning my guns.
I've come to realize that there's other ways to spend my time rather than be on the computer every waking moment. To some of you this may seem obvious, but it's the culmination of a 25-year experience for me. So, I've needed something to occupy my non-computing, non-family time - basically I need to get out of the house.
I have an overly strong sense of justice - I dislike seeing people "get away" with stuff they know is wrong. I also think that doing the lawful thing isn't always the same as doing the right thing.
So I discovered the Washington County Sheriff's Reserve Academy. It's free training and when successfully completed, you become a full-fledged, unpaid Sheriff's Reserve Deputy. Not doing fund raisers. Not cleaning out the precinct toilets. Actually out on patrol with the car, flashlight, and gun.
It sounds pretty cool, and so I've started to look into it. Except... they just canceled this year's (2009-2010) academy due to budget cuts, so the earliest I could attend would be in 2011, which is a real bummer. I'll have to settle for ride-alongs and maybe the Citizen's Academy until then I guess.
I just acquired my first personal handgun - a Glock 19. I chose the 19 because 9mm rounds are very common, are easier on the wrist than a .40 or .45, and the 19 is compact enough to conceal, but large enough to be reasonably accurate. It's a compromise gun, but it works well enough.
Now that I have this handgun, I'd like to use it, which is why I've been drawn to the Open Carry movement. I have a Ruger 10/22 that hardly ever comes out of the closet because I'm too busy to go shooting regularly. By Open Carrying, I'll be using my handgun quite a bit!
Anyway, that's pretty much me in a nutshell. My real name is Dave, but my handle is "Autonym" or just "Auto" for short - any/either is fine.
Nice talking with you guys. I'm looking forward to meeting some of you at Bombers this Thursday.
P.S. - "Autonym" literally means "Self-Named", or the name one gives to oneself. So using Autonym as my handle (the name I pick for myself) is a bit of a play-on-words.
