A Bio Thingy

Hello, I'm me... well at least I was a minute ago.

Sometimes I use my real name, Joel, but not that often... mostly I use the name gishzida [a Sumerian gate keeper to the underworld (been there, done that)]. I'll answer to gish or Gz [Jeez]

In the 80's I worked on the Space Shuttle Main Engine at Rocketdyne (a.k.a. The Rocket Factory) as a Quality Assurance Technical Analyst / Measuring Machine Programmer / Data Analysis Programmer. I was one of a very few people that got to do this. Some of the measurement data translation / data evaluation software I wrote was used without further need for revison for years after I was laid off. 

In the 90's I worked for a electronic compliance lab as a "test engineer" doing things like dropping telephones on the floor or zapping devices with 3000 volts and seeing if they smoked or taking them out in to the desert 50 west of Edwards Air Force Base where electro-magnetic interference is minimal and measuring how "noisy" a device was.

In the late 90's I began a career in computer networking as a Novell & Windows network administrator which ended in 2011 and I have been pretty much unemployed since - let's not go there - except to say that I am now officially "retired".

I also am a singer-songwriter-composer-arranger having worked in coffe shops and small theater and a weekly open mike variety show [I won a L.A Weekly Production Design Award and for Sound Design in 1999 for a small theater production of "Tainted Blood" ].

I have something like 12 guitars (topping the list:: a 1954 Gibson J-50 and a 1983 Gibson ES-175), 6 synths, lots of software and computers, 2 cats and no sense. I forgot to mention I also at one time around 2000 / 2001) had 3 albums of Techno / Noise / Electronika on MP3.com

I'm an autodidact / Jack of all trades or a Renaissance man but have been also been called a sciolist too. Take your pick. See my sig for a clarification.

I picked up Poser the first time long about Poser 2... but didn't start really working with it until about 2005. I use both Poser Pro [2014 and PP11] and DS 4.9... I have the usual suspects of DAZ software (Hexagon, Bryce, Carrara) but rarely use them. I only seriously started posting renders in 2012 over at DeviantArt. Some of it's good. Some is bad. Most of it is "Not Suitable for Work". YMMV.

Cheers!

[EDIT] Ack! I didn't realize this would show up on the front page... sorry for spamming you with my learning curve...