WIMIAdmin a.k.a. Brian

[wimiadmin]

Hi, I'm Brian, I'm 5' 10" tall, blonde hair, blue eyes, 185lbs. I like taking long walks on the beach.

Seriously...

I'm not real good at talking about me. I let my work speak for itself.

I've always had an interest in computers. My first computer was a TI-99/4A http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-99 back in 1983ish when I was 12 years old. Any "program" I wrote using the BASIC language had to be stored on cassette....and by "program", I mean creating things like blocky square stick figures dancing across the screen or making an alarm clock....but nothing spectacular. *sigh* That takes me back.

After graduating high school in 1988, I joined the Air Force and worked on airplanes for the next 13 years (C-141's, C-5's, C-17's, KC-10's, etc.). My first base was McGuire AFB, NJ and after being there for 4 years, I got lucky and was transferred to Hickam AFB, HI where I stayed until I got out of the military in 2001. *sigh* I miss Hawaii.

While living in HI, I bought my first x86 compatible and my computer knowledge has been growing ever since.

I've worked in Tech Support for a software company all the way to being a LAN Admin with hundreds of users/devices for the National Park Service.

Now, I work from home. It's kind of a pain because it's very hard to separate work time from home time. But in the end, I wouldn't trade it for the world. My wife works for the same company. The guy that owns the company and I graduated high school together. The company manages over 50,000 domain names. We manage nearly 20 Windows 2k3 servers where this and other sites are hosted. It can sometimes get demanding, but when your job is really like a hobby, there's nothing better.

Our company has realized the importance of attending industry confrences like DomainFest.com, TargetedTRAFFIC.com, PubCon.com, etc. My wife and I don't have kids so we get to travel via the company's dime. In 2008, we went to Disney, Niagara Falls (Canada), New York City, and Las Vegas all courtesy of the company. In 2009 we're going to Los Angeles, San Francisco, hopefully Amsterdam, Washington D.C., New York City and possibly Toronto (Canada).

Running WIMI has been a lot of fun for me. Prior to having the forum, I had no idea who our visitors were. The forum has given me the opportunity to really "meet" some nice folks as well as help some of you out along the way. I've had the opportunity to actually meet AboveTheLogic a.k.a. Steve in person and buy him dinner and a few beverages when we were in Vegas. I'll get to meet ClanMills a.k.a. Robin when we go to San Fran in April. I've offered the same courtesy to Robin of buying him dinner and drinks to say thanks for helping with the forum. However, Robin is a Scot so I may end up having to cut him off.

I look forward to being the WIMI Admin for years to come and hopefully getting to meet some of our members in my travels.

A more formal info page about me can be found by going to my linkedin profile. www.briansgilbert.com will direct you there.

I hope many of you will take the time to introduce yourselves.