First job out of university was in RPG 2, which I had never heard of before my interview. Learned on the job.

Still programming in RPG, but it "isn't your daddy's RPG"

There are still lots of companies that use it in IBM midrange shops. One company I was at until 2007 had their computer crash only once since 1992 - the reason was that the UPS batteries were dead and they shut down power for a company renovation. The IBM i (once called the AS/400) has been a reliable workhorse since its inception. Many companies that have it won't give it up because of that.

I can communicate with any other system and do it with a smaller programming staff than most shops. I have mostly been an employee, as I am now, but spent almost 7 years as a consultant around Columbus Ohio also.

I have had Sprint for almost 13 years now and they have been great. Started with 5 lines, now we have 9.

In rural Ohio you can find Sprint stores in most towns. The closest T-Mobile store to me is 45 minutes away.

When I was in university over 30 years ago I had a large collection of "Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers", "Zippy the Pinhead", and "Fat Freddy's Cat" comics.

I cannot remember which one it was, but one part of one comic had a way to change lights that was quite interesting. If more than one car is coming to an intersection and the light was red, you could put in money to make it change. The person who put in the most got it to change. Many times it would only take a penny, but if many rich people were in a hurry it could start a bidding war. I always think of this when I come to stupidly controlled red lights where I am the only car.

On another note, I was just in Norway and Denmark for 2 weeks. I rented a car and in most areas I was at there were no lights or stop signs. Almost all traffic was controlled by roundabouts where needed and places where there would have been a stop sign in the US, there was a yield sign in Norway. I liked it.

I was just listening to a VOIP connection to 1 million monkeys typing. Here is their message:

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent..."

I had a house where I had to take off a metal return vent cover in order to put a temporary cupboard base in. I put a mouse trap near it and a mouse got caught by just one arm and fell into the long metal return duct. It kept flipping around in there making an awful racket! I had to take the end cap off the duct and reach in about 15 feet with kids toys hooked together (I had to put them together in pieces since the end cap was near a wall) to pull out this mouse & trap. It took quite a while and the entire time it was like someone banging on the duct work all through the house.

I program in RPG on an iSeries (see my sign on name).

We have the opposite problem. I think 40 is the youngest programmer on our staff of about 10 people who are programming. I have jokingly told lots of people that my skills are so out of date that they are back in demand. I think it is similar with COBOL programmers. My skills aren't really out of date, they just aren't the "sexy" jobs in languages most people think of. I like my job and the people I work with and we get a lot of work done that drives a thriving business.

Not that we take any old "old" person. We just had a 60 year old on a 60 day "try and buy" and he couldn't stay awake - blamed it on medication. He did a lousy job also so didn't even last the full 60 days. We find it hard to find anyone qualified and the ones we do try aren't young. None the less, it is a great platform.

But according to the Hulk Hogan / Gawker trial, it was NOT 10 inches

Kip:

Yes, I love technology

But not as much as you, you see

But I still love technology

Always and forever

Like I tell my friends, my skills are so outdated they are in demand. Not really true since the language has changed a lot. It is not a sexy language, and most of the people I work with are 40 or older, but the IBM i (AS/400, iSeries, etc.) still hums along great for a small investment. Companies that have them love them.

I worked at a place used a vendors software that also had a server based version. They wanted us to switch but the owner said "Our current servers crash often, but our iSeries has been up since 1993 and has not gone down except when the power was cut and we found out our UPS batteries were dead." At the time, that was 13 years of steady processing.

But it is the sows that feed the young, not the boars!

This was one of the first times I took the time to RTFA - not just one, but all 3 installments. It was a really interesting read.

I like using a low credit limit card for most transactions just for the very reason that I lack trust in the system.

Since I make my living at it, and have for 34 years, RPG is by far the most important.

There is still a large community using it and supporting it.

A user calls and says they have a problem with program x so they call me. When they get there, they cannot reproduce the bug. We assume that the software know that it is whipped once I come into the picture so it fixes itself. You would not believe how many times this has happened over 30+ years.

Where do you get such a deal?

And not enough cowbell! We need more cowbell!