| 2011 |
WebAssign continues to grow as the stack of needs grows even faster.
Audio projects include new furniture for the music room, switching the Fostex drivers for
prototype Lowther field-coils in the Azurahorns, and upgrading the main bearing in the Lenco turntable.
|
| 2010 |
Finally build new bass panels to support Azurahorns in music room.
In April I'm approached by a 120-person education startup, WebAssign, and offered position as Director of UX.
The vault back into management is tempered by a senior executive team with selective understanding
of software and UX best practices -- a challenge I accept. Build a simple SRPP 6L6 amplifier as
a cooler-running 'summer amp' for the music room and draw up plans for the paneling and acoustic treatments.
In November WebAssign moves into new offices, 32,000 square feet with room to grow...
|
| 2009 |
Landed position at BlueStripe as sole UX designer/tester/strategist,
happily bike commuting 14 miles to Morrisville several days a week. Exciting to be back in
a small company with very smart teams, but tough to keep starting over at minimum vacation!
Attended VSAC 2009 in Vancouver, WA and saw most of my DIY acquaintances, brainstormed new 46-based
preamp with remote-control autoformer outputs for volume controls... Wind up most of the kitchen
construction in time for Thanksgiving.
Christmas tour of the Southeast to visit family in Atlanta and Birmingham, a
nd return trip through Asheville, NC to visit Biltmore with impressive Christmas decor.
|
| 2008 |
Settling into another project house in Raleigh,
re-wired the basement and built out woodshop space over the cold months.
Started commuting to Lulu by bicycle using the excellent greenway system here in the Triangle -
11 miles each way, 8 miles on dedicated greenway through Umstead state park! Attended VSAC 2008 in May.
Planning a big vacation in late summer for Blithe's birthday (shhh, don't tell her, it's a surprise).
We start working with an architect on updates for the house, but in October
Bob Young pulls the plug on a chunk of Lulu and lays off 28/120 employees -
including the COO, the CFO, a herd of SVPs and, gulp, me. Christmas vacation we tear down the
wall between the kitchen and dining room to expand the tiny 1950s design.
|
| 2007 |
We return from Costa Rica with 3GB of pictures and many incredible green memories.
In February an interesting company in Raleigh tracks me down and persistently requests that
I come over to speak with them; they are hiring a new head of UX and have a dynamic agile development environment and unlimited potential.
After the initial interview things go quiet while they pursue other leads,
but in April they go active and make a terrific offer, including relocation.
After agonizing for a while, and Wachovia's attempts to woo me back fizzling,
I accepted the new job and joined lulu.com in mid-April. And the housing market grinds to a halt -
we sold the Charlotte house in the Fall and bought another fixer-upper in Raleigh just north of NCSU.
|
| 2006 |
Finance contract project with Wachovia ends in January,
so I move to a new contract with the Wachovia eCommerce Interactive Design Group (IDG).
Blithe is travelling non-stop for EDS...
Late Spring road trip to Oswalds Mill for another weekend of fevered tube amp and horn speaker madness -
I brought along the preamp breadboard configured for globe 227 (will also work with 112a, and various octal tubes).
In December I accept an offer from Wachovia and go full-time with the eCommerce group.
For Christmas, Blithe plans a ten day trip to Costa Rica.
|
| 2005 |
Continued consulting project with Wachovia.
Located and fixed a hidden short in the filaments of il Monstro brought on by thousands of miles of travel.
Built a pair of back-loaded horns for the special edition Fostex FE166es-r drivers from the Nagaoka 'factory' design.
In late Spring we end up with two more kittens after one of our cats, Rascal, loses a race with a car. We'll miss him.
Tragic reef tank failure in early Summer from a split seam results in 80% loss of corals and fish,
Blithe spends the rest of the year planning and nurturing a new tank.
Started riding the bus to work after Katrina hit NOLA, realized it was much easlier and less expensive than driving to Uptown Charlotte every day!
Attended RMAF in September, then visited Terry and Leslie Cain in Walla Walla, WA in October.
|
| 2004 |
House renovations and move-in in the winter (two whole blocks from the rental house to the purchased house),
finally host a dixie bottlehead meeting at our house in April.
I built a pair of efficient speakers, and il Monstro 845:845 amplifier is fully debugged and running!
Three days after a major software release S1 cuts me loose at the end of August;
nearly 9 years of service is no reason for loyalty in our new economy.
Job hunting in a Bush recession is not much fun, so I take a solo road trip to Memphis in September to
visit Jeffrey Jackson. We adopt a mixed-breed puppy, Mario, from a shelter in South Carolina.
Second trip to Oswalds Mill in Pennsylvania, this time with all 282 pounds of il Monstro.
In November, after various local interviews I take on a twelve month
contractor position with Wachovia working on internal reporting and a J2EE account reconcilement system.
|
| 2003 |
Charlotte gets almost 12 inches of snow our first winter, a new record.
We get settled into the rental house house, including a new 280 gallon (eight feet long!) reef tank for Blithe.
Another cat, 'Miss Thing', joins the household, a refugee from Blithe's mother.
I start riding my bicycle to work two or three days each week before I have an accident and
end up under a school bus with a six week recovery.
Finally get started on converting the mono breadboard of the 845:845 amp into a stereo 'cat-safe' version.
Blithe leaves Equant in a strange modern corporate severance without compensation and is snapped up
by EDS immediately. We sell the house in Morningside in the fall and buy another 1938 bungalow in the Myers Park neighborhood.
|
| 2002 |
Started work on the 845:845 power amps, after Sakuma.
Still working on the back patio expansion, but it's looking pretty good.
Bonky the cat dies of congestive heart failure at the age of 14 and we bury him beside Pinhead.
We adopt two new cats from the DeKalb shelter, Rascal and Duffy, who terrorize the dog.
We finish the back patio and start replanting the front yard. Vacation trips in the spring to the Bahamas and L.A.
At home we watch the markets continue to tumble in the growing economic turmoil of the new Bush administration,
but each of use survives several RIFs. In the fall I am transferred by S1 to the Charlotte, NC office and we move
everything we own and try renting our house in Morningside. S1 Enterprise Platform 1 - 1.2 ships.
|
| 2001 |
Visit to Brussels and Cheltenham, UK S1 offices in March.
The City of Atlanta sells a previous owner's tax bill to a nefarious
collection agency that proceeds to try and take our house - yoiks.
Spent five summer weeks in Austin, Texas working on startup of a new software project for S1,
and was able to finally pay Joel Artzt back for '96 Olympic biking tickets.
Retired the 1982 Volvo wagon and bought a Honda CRV to extend my pattern of odd car choices.
Got overly ambitious and dug up the backyard to install a stone wall and expand the rear patios to almost 800 square feet.
Pinhead the cat dies of kidney complications and we bury her carefully in the backyard.
Started driving to Knoxville bi-monthly for Dixie Bottlehead meetings. Did a serious upgrade on our shop-in-a-one-car-garage.
Flew to Seattle for the 2001 VSAC (Vacuum State of the Art Conference) and had an incredibly
good time drinking beer and swapping stories with 400 other DIY tube audio junkies.
|
| 2000 |
Survived Y2K, barely. Found a good contractor to finish the things the first [lame] contractor left undone.
Attended SIGCHI conference in The Hague, my first visit to the Netherlands.
Instead of going home I flew 13 hours due south from Schipol to meet Blithe in Capetown, South Africa for
her reward from Equant for outstanding (and relentless) efforts. Also stayed in a gamecamp in
Kreuger National Park for several days. While on vacation S1 stock falls from $142 to $70,
of course, this was only the beginning... of the crash. Spent the summer working on the house and rebuilding my tube preamp.
In the fall, Blithe pays for a trip to Paris and Provence for my 40th B'day! Started work on a J2EE version of
the S1 products using JSP and tag library technologies.
|
| 1999 |
Developed Object-Oriented template methodology for S1 Consumer Suite release 5,
and spent the rest of the year implementing it.
Bought a house with Blithe in the intown Atlanta neighborhood of Morningside.
Spent the summer and fall doing renovations.
Learned that some contractors really are liars and thieves.
Also learned that other contractors can do a really good job.
Moved from Roswell, GA back to intown.
Built a tube preamp for my living room stereo.
Realized that no vacations and all work makes me boring and irritable.
|
| 1998 |
Busier than hell.
Ski trip to Jackson Hole.
Bought a new computer.
Revised home pages.
Moved into Blithe's condominium and acquired a true commute.
Discovered that a reef tank is a money pit.
Promoted to Chief Interface Architect at S1.
Began to learn scuba diving.
Rediscovered Paintball.
Revised home pages again.
|
| 1997 |
Spoke at 3rd Generation Web Sites Conference in San Francisco.
Designed Symbic site.
Ski trip to Telluride.
Got sucked down the slippery slope of home theater systems,
eventually losing normal living room arrangements to speaker needs.
Designed Alpha-Core Site and bartered for audio cabling.
After presenting a paper on effective use of UI at S1 was
promoted and hired three more UI designers for S1 to begin advanced research.
|
| 1996 |
First trip to Japan.
Survived Five Paces' parent company, SFNB's IPO.
5P changes name to Security First Technologies (aka S1).
Olympics come to Atlanta; I'm blocked into my apartment for 6 events (but had a great view).
Bought first motorcycle, a Suzuki dual-sport. Learn to love riding.
Met Blithe Hoffman through match.com in the Fall and began dating.
|
| 1995 |
Elected Vice Chair of Atlanta chapter of IDSA,
also Founding Board member Allied Design Council.
Broke up with Stacey and moved to Buckhead.
My Mom died from cancer after several years of remission.
Fighting to the end, she pulled out of a serious infection so that she could come back to Atlanta instead of going out in California.
Left Peachtree Software to join Five Paces Software as
Interface Architect for development of internet banking interfaces.
Learned HTML.
|
| 1994 |
Performed name searches and corporate identity work
to change name of SpectraLogic to Ratio DesignLab.
Left Ratio to join Peachtree Software as Interface Architect.
Broke right thumb mountain biking.
First met Alan Cooper at a seminar in San Jose, California.
|
| 1993 |
Did much more interface design work as a result of the IDEA award.
Started consulting with Peachtree Software with large impact on the Peachtree Accounting for Windows 2.0 release.
Became a landlord by renting out house in Decatur,
moved in with Stacey Kalberman in Morningside and renovated another kitchen.
|
| 1992 |
Won IDSA/BusinessWeek Gold IDEA (Industrial Design Excellence Award)
for interface design of Medtronic Fit Software
(along with David Amis, lead programmer,
and John Oberschelp, harassed programmer and comic relief);
a custom database interface which helps technical response
personnel recommend combinations of pacemakers and leads.
Adopted two cats from Humane Society, Bonky and Pinhead.
|
| 1991 |
Aside from a lot of design work and changing
girlfriends a couple of times, not much happened. Cassie the cat dies from liver failure.
|
| 1990 |
Bought first house in Decatur, GA.
Lived through 9 months of renovations (kitchen, bathroom, garage apartment)
without killing my brother Clay, or his girlfriend Kathy.
|
| 1989 |
Bought first mountain bike. First major concurrent
engineering contract at SpectraLogic (Citibank SSST project).
Dropped out of Business School (too little time!).
|
| 1988 |
Scored in 89th percentile on GMAT,
began Graduate School at GSU, working towards a Marketing MBA.
Bought a Mac SE.
Left LPA and joined SpectraLogic, a hardware and software engineering firm,
as sole designer.
|
| 1987 |
Worked with Center for Puppetry Arts on
'Cirque Pataphisique', a nationally recognized piece of performance art
presented by XPT (Xperimental Puppetry Theater).
Moved to Buckhead.
Taught class on automobile design at High Museum of Art.
Adopted a grey tabby named Cassie.
|
| 1986 |
Continued freelancing DBA Pyramid Design,
then joined Lee Payne Associates (LPA) as Senior Designer.
Taught class on Industrial Design at High Museum of Art.
|
| 1985 |
First trip to Europe, visited Geneva, Zermatt, London.
Moved to Virginia-Highlands.
JSDG bought/sold/given to McCalla-Lackey (still not sure what happened).
Fired from McCalla-Lackey for insubordination (AKA, freelancing at home) --
learned that there's no good reason to stay at a job that is making you crazy.
|
| 1984 |
Broken nose and 11 stitches from hit-and-run road biking accident.
Promoted to Senior Designer at JSDG.
Moved out of fleabag apartment and into Norcross condo with Dave Sowinski and Hollis Dayton,
then to apartment in Roswell (suburbs North of Atlanta) with Rebekah Lynch.
Parents transferred to Belmont, CA (San Francisco Bay area).
|
| 1983 |
Received IDSA Merit Award.
Graduated with B.Ind from Auburn University.
Joined Jack Seay Design Group (JSDG) as Industrial Designer.
Moved to Atlanta and into fleabag apartment in Doraville.
|
| 1982 |
Co-op position with Intergraph in Huntsville, AL; designed
multi-button mice and workstation concepts.
Began Senior design studio series.
Two more quarters on Dean's List.
Selected for Tau Sigma Delta Architecture/Design honorary.
|
| 1981 |
Another trip to Dean's List.
Finished Sophomore design studios; won 'Best Design' award in annual IND cardboard boat competition.
Worked through Summer quarter at Lockwood-Greene.
Began Junior design studio series.
Threaten to transfer to another IND program.
|
| 1980 |
Winter Quarter, made Dean's List for first time.
Took off 2 quarters to get into design studio sequence.
Start Co-op position as Electrical Draftsman with Lockwood-Greene (humongous architectural engineering firm in Atlanta).
Began Sophomore design studio series.
Second Dean's list appointment.
|
| 1979 |
Transfered from Materials Engineering to Industrial Design program.
Parents move from Atlanta to Denver, CO.
Began classes to make up for missing design prerequisites after MTL curriculum Freshman year.
Elected VP, pledge education in fraternity.
|
| 1978 |
Graduated Chamblee High School.
Selected for Marching Band at Auburn.
Began studying Materials Engineering.
Joined Delta Tau Delta fraternity, moved into house.
|
| 1977 |
First Job: Tin-type photographer at Six Flags over Georgia.
Began HS Senior Year.
Bought a questionable 1962 Corvair coupe and spent the rest of the year
attempting to restore it and cleaning grease out from under my nails.
Quit attending church.
|
| 1976 |
High School Junior.
Took PSAT, SAT.
Joined Literature Club and discovered Richard Brautigan.
Selected for 'Impact', a self-directed study program for gifted students.
Shakespeare course; read ten plays in twelve weeks.
|
| 1975 |
High School Sophomore.
Earned Life level in Scouts, collected
merit badges and other stuff for Eagle, but never completed service project.
Learned to drive; Great-Grandmother Cox died in Gadsden, Alabama.
Began taking Spanish.
|
| 1974 |
Learned to snow ski on a trip to Steamboat.
High School Freshman. Grandfather 'Pop' Sturkie dies in Gadsden, Alabama.
First pair of Levi's jeans.
Marching band trip to Virginia Beach Music Festival.
|
| 1973 |
Began attending Chamblee High School in eighth grade.
Discovered girls and fear of rejection.
Began to play the Euphonium (an upright tenor tuba) in band.
Watergate. Should we trust authority?
|
| 1972 |
Wieuca Road Baptist Church, named Summer camp Honor Camper.
Began to paint in oils.
Earned first merit badge at Bert-Adams Scout camp.
Graduated from Sexton Woods elementary school.
|
| 1971 |
Began sixth grade.
Joined Boy Scouts.
Grandfather 'Pop' taught me how to shoot my first BB gun.
|
| 1970 |
Began fifth grade.
Aborted attempt to learn to play the trombone.
Joined Webelos (cub scouts).
Began private art classes under Joanna Rabb.
Learned charcoal and watercolor techniques, would continue with these classes until 1976.
|
| 1969 |
Began fourth grade.
Remember Mrs. Irwin throwing an eraser at a sleeping Wyatt S. to wake him in class.
Learned to drop-kick unreliably.
Joined 'Indian Guides' with my brother and Dad, went camping for the first time.
Discovered fireworks and singed off my eyebrows.
|
| 1968 |
Began third grade.
Broke my left radius (a forearm bone) jumping out of a treehouse.
Richard Nixon elected President.
|
| 1967 |
Moved to Chamblee, Georgia, a close-in suburb
(inside the perimeter beltway) of Atlanta.
Began second grade at Sexton Woods elementary.
Forced to 'un-learn' cursive to fit into public school handwriting programs.
|
| 1966 |
Moved to Palo Alto, California when Dad changed jobs
and went to work for Hewlett-Packard.
After six months in the Bay Area and beginning first grade,
we moved back to Huntsville and I re-entered Evangel School.
|
| 1965 |
Began Kindergarten at Evangel School in Huntsville.
Remember earthquake-like vibrations during testing of Saturn rocket engines.
|
| 1964 |
Fitted for corrective shoes. Played doctor.
Trip to Panama City Beach
(remember not being able to see because the sun was so bright on the sand).
|
| 1963 |
Remember Mercury launches on TV. My sister Anita Frances Carter
is Born 15jul, in Huntsville. Learned to fight with my brother.
Favorite movie of all time, Dr. Strangelove (or how I learned to stop worrying
and love the bomb) released.
|
| 1962 |
Moved to Huntsville, Alabama after my Father left the Navy and went to work for a NASA contractor.
|
| 1961 |
My brother John Clayton Carter is Born 12nov, also at Bethesda Naval Hospital, Bethesda, MD.
Learned to walk and speak simple sentences.
Earliest memory: Dad watching football while Clay and I sat in small red plastic chairs in the Bethesda apartment.
|
| 1960 |
Born 28sep 12:38am, Bethesda Naval Hospital,
firstborn child to Lenora and Phillip Carter, Sr.
Learned to breathe, cry, eat, burp, drool, and look cute.
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