<html><body><span style="font-family:Verdana; color:#000000; font-size:10pt;"><br>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----<br>Hash: SHA1<br><br><br>Thank you for the opportunity to introduce myself. I Googled the name "Mark Walker" and about 22,600,000 hits were returned; none of them me in the first few pages. I then Googled the name "Mark Caldwell Walker" and about 168,000 hits were returned; all of them me in the first few pages. <br><br>As one of those "older guys" my curriculum vitae might not be the best approach for an introduction, but I will point out that I've had plenty of chances to make mistakes and to learn from them. I do love to learn, and that's one of the reasons I'm here. I am here also in search of new challenges, new ways to produce meaningful results that actually help people, and along with that genuine personal fulfillment. That might seem a little demanding, especially from someone who's not yet retired from his day job and therefore has only nights and weekends to offer for now. But I sense that the time is right for me to venture into these areas where I've only been lurking in listservs for far too long.<br><br>My writing projects include the three science fiction novels that appear in the Google search returns mentioned above. My professional writing includes some newspaper writing in my younger years, which naturally followed my BA in Journalism. I've since written some professional documents for previous employers, which were in the telecommunications and computer project management fields and briefed them to executive management. <br><br>My other degree is an MS in Management. That's not very computer related on the surface, but I've also been a licensed radio amateur since 1967 (although I'm "rare DX") and my first home computer was a Commodore 64. I'm not a programmer, but I've played with FORTRAN, Basic, Pascal, C++, Visual Basic, Java, and Bash scripting. Certs include A+ and Network+, and I've been studying up on Security+ and Certified Ethical Hacker. In the past few years I've been researching XML, and think I could produce DocBook products based on the v5 RELAXNG schema.<br><br>I also have a radio broadcasting background that spans about 9 commercial stations. This was on-air experience; yes, I was your friendly local radio DJ. My production of the FredPod podcast (feel free to Google it) is my effort to enjoy broadcasting activities that take advantage of the people-empowering trends in this field. I've been attempting to get the open source Rivendell application running, but so far that remains a work in progress.<br><br>One other thing about me that might be of interest is I'm also known as "Santa Claus." I like to say that the white beard is real and so is the jolliness, but I wear the red suit only on special occasions anymore.<br><br>Pleased to meet you,<br>Mark<br><br>gpg --fingerprint AA482E46<br>pub 1024D/AA482E46 2006-07-06 [expires: 2011-07-05]<br> Key fingerprint = D780 2F66 B08D 739D 3BF0 2468 7C22 870D AA48 2E46<br>uid Mark Walker (marwalk.net) <mark@marwalk.net><br>uid Mark Walker (alternate address) <marwalk@gmail.com><br>uid Mark Caldwell Walker (Earth Alien) <marwalk@marwalk.com><br>sub 2048g/4421C0B1 2006-07-06 [expires: 2011-07-05]<br>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----<br>Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)<br><br>iEYEARECAAYFAkquwVIACgkQfCKHDapILkZTMQCghYPbrypxWZxGeOf96MzzsChg<br>WH4AoOXk3ZGsxxts7KO2z0OevASj5RL0<br>=Z+Lf<br>-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----<br><br></span></body></html>