Original Document:
I was born in a log cabin in.....waitaminnit, wrong story. Okay, I'm from south Texas, Uvalde to be exact., so I am prone to talk with a um, slight accent. Mah forbears arrived and settled between St. Augustine and Nacogdoches around 1820 (G.G.Grandfather John J. Simpson), and my GGrandfather Alberta A. Nelson of Massachusetts arrived in 1836 in Nacogdoches (became Mayor), and have settled in various parts of Texas since then. I've lived in San Antone, Dallas, Round Rock, Uvalde, Killeen, and Austin since college, and find the hill country to be nearly perfect for my lifestyle, so we have built a nice home in Lago Vista, 18 miles from downtown Austin. Kind of like having yore cake, and french fries too.
I grew up in a real Rexall Drug Store in Uvalde, complete with soda fountain and small-town benefits. Somehow I remained sane and gradjiated (there's that Texan accent agin) High School in 73'. I stayed in Uvalde for a couple of years, attended a junior college, and got most of my pharmacy pre-requisites out of the way. I also got a first degree brown belt in TaeKwanDo Karate and in Kodokan Judo from sensei Lonnie Green, largely as self-defense from all of the republicans that I matriculated with. (Enrollment was about 1000 people: 999 rednecks and me). Somehow I was able to graduate from the University of Texas in 1978 from the UT College of Pharmacy with a B.S. (seemed a fitting term, somehow). I spent my last year in San Antone at the UT Health Science Center where I received excellent clinical training as a hospital pharmacist.
I have practiced pharmacy in independents, chain stores, apothecary, large hospitals (>600 beds) and small hospitals (<100 beds). Also directed the services for a small hospital for 4 years, and learned to design databases and build/program computers in my spare time. Co-authored a dynamic comprehensive pharmacy management system called Rx-Link , using DataEase, a 4th-generation relational RAD tool (See Wikipedia). RxLink was perhaps the largest PC-based computer tool for running a hospital pharmacy, in terms of reports and features. I retired as a consultant for DataEase applications a few years back. .
For more than 20 years, I provided custom programming solutions and training in PC operations. I've logged more than 2.4 million miles with American Airlines, am a life-time platinum member with platinum membership in AA, Marriott Marquis Platinum, gold standing with Hurts, er, Hertz., traveling to hospitals around the YewEssHay (47 states) and Canada. I've personally trained pharmacists in more than 250 hospitals and analyzed pharmacy practices in those hospitals in order to customize their softwares.
I obtained certification in sterile compounding, and then taught myself how to lyophyllize medications for sterile injection, designed and set up a working "high-risk" sterile compounding lab and ran it for two years, producing a variety of medications. Every batch was tested for both accuracy and sterility prior to release. Only once did one of my batches fail the independent lab's testing, and thanks to their forensic DNA methods, their own tech was identified as the source for the contamination, so I was 100% excellent in this role.
Seeing on the horizon a horrible (but necessary) tsunami of regulations being promulgated for such sterile compounding (Oh, I was also performin non-sterile compounding very happily), I decided to semi-retire and just do steady PRN pharmacist practice. After a few years, I was offered a PIC (Pharmacist in Charge) position at a pharmacy in a medical clinic and decided it would be fun. I've been there for over 5 years and it's the best pharmacy (aside from my father's Rexall Drug Store) that I have ever worked in, and as of September, 2022 I still am there. I've guaranteed to staty for a few more years, when Gina and I will both retire to begin a new chapter.
Switched from a hybrid car to a Tesla Model Y, and now find myself with a garage full of tools I will never need again! Have had it for over a year and 26K miles and I've had to rotate tires and refill the windshile wiper resevoir several times. That's it for maintenance. 37 mile commute costs me about 90 cents in electricity. Trying to keep my "safety score" above 96% on the Tesla, wish I had bought one years ago but I am also delighted I waited until the Model Y came out as it is as roomy as my Saab 900 Turbo was. I
ARC's mugshot, made by a friend from the CTPCUG back in the early 80s (Central Texas PC Users Group)