About Garrett aka Mr Glee
Some of you might be wondering who is this crazy guy? What could somebody who writes insanely long emails about how to fix my IJ look like? What the heck does this guy do? Where does he live? What is his phone number? What are the latitude and longitudinal coordinates to his house?
If you are not wondering these things then just hit the 'Back' button. This page is all about me!
I live in Spokane, WA. This is a medium sized town in Washington State, USA. Spokane is pretty close to Idaho. If you want to get a further idea of life around here, check out the local news site, for KREM television. They even have some traffic cams so if you want to wave to me on the way to work, just look for my silver hatchback and wave!
I have always lived in this area. I have traveled around this part of the country but haven't set foot outside this country except for Canada which is pretty close to me too. After high school in a small rural town with only 8 people in my senior class, I attended Eastern Washington University for 6 years. They didn't have an electronics engineering degree, so I created my own electronics education by getting a degree in Technology : Electronics Emphasis, plus a minor in Computer Science. I don't endorse the tech department out there, nor do I have anything good to say about it, but I got my degree and learned some neat things along the way! The Computer Science department at EWU is really good and they had some excellent teachers when I was there.
During my 6 years at EWU, I also worked full time for a local coin operated company. They operated just about anything that you put a quarter in (except gambling devices). When I wasn't out on the route servicing games, I worked in the shop and shopped out pinball machines and video games. It was a great job for a college student, I learned lots of electronic circuit theory and met a LOT of very nice business owners and patrons in the Spokane area. I didn't necessarily enjoy being called "the game guy" but that is how they knew me and I always liked going into a business to fix up the old pinball machine.
After I graduated from college I decided to get a "real job". I was immediately offered a job for a local, private company that made electronic signs. This small company (50 employees) used a lot of <company name omitted> reflective materials on the signs <company name omitted> was interested in our product and eventually decided to take their Traffic Controls Division into electronic, changeable message signs. The company owner was at a time in his life to retire, so he sold us to <company name omitted>. (Update to this page) The company that was described here has made some decisions that I am not proud of (or happy with) so I choose to not list their name anymore, email me for details if you're curious.
I write firmware that is embedded in traffic signs manufactured by our facility. I've written code that has shipped in signs that have been sold to customers all over the world. I haven't done any commercial signs yet, but you may have seen one of my traffic signs as you have driven down the freeway. Some examples of signs that I have wrote code for are large stationary signs that are the size of billboards and even small portable signs that can be moved around by hooking to a trailer hitch on a truck. I like the job a lot and have a lot of fun making these big signs display messages.
For more information about the signs that my company makes, check out the web page at <no longer available> http://www.americanelectronicsign.com/
, this is the old web page for the previous company name with a link to the new site. I mainly work with flip-disk pixels with LEDs, and some LED-only signs.
In my spare time when I'm not digging into tons of source code for signs, I like to go bike riding and fixing up computers and other geek things. I like tinkering with my home theater set-up. I have lots of high-end stereo equipment with 6-channel surround sound. If you have any home theater questions, just ask. My set-up makes watching movies very enjoyable on the big-screen television. I also know a little about DBS satellite dish installing and set-up.
Okay, here's the photo gallery…
This is me in my suit that I purchased for job interviews. I didn't realize that I would get a job so quickly! Lots of sun that day, makes me look white as a ghost!
This is me and Q-Ball. I rescued him from the bowels of a pool-table one day at my last job.
This is me at work. This was my first walk-in sign project. This sign is currently on the side of the freeway in North Carolina.
Well that's it for now! Throw an email at me if you have any comments or questions!
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