Autobiographical
I am Patrick Cable: System Administrator, occasional photographer, occasional writer, and occasional designer.
Here’s a collection of answers to questions that seem like they belong on a biography page.
Where did you grow up?
A small town about 30-ish miles south of Boston. It’s near Plymouth.
Why computers?
The second you figure out what it is you want to do with your life, you never forget it.
I was in kindergarten in the mid-90s and there was an Apple II in the classroom. I remember not knowing what it was, other than people put a large floppy rectangular thing in some… thing, and… things happened. Anyways, I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. I still do.
Second grade came around and my grandfather purchased our first desktop computer from a shop in Hanover called PC Warehouse. It was a 80MHz 486dx2 (he didn’t want to get a Pentium — there were reports about some “F00F” bug), with 8mb of RAM and a 512 MB hard drive. Those words wont mean a lot to some people… so comparatively, the desktop I write this on has:
- 1000ish times the amount of memory,
- 2000ish times the amount of disk space, and
- An iPhone is faster than what my old computer was.
I had a 2 hour limit on computer time, and I frequently went over (resulting in losing that time for the rest of the week). I would get in trouble for playing CDs on the computer (“It’s a computer! You have a CD player of your own!”). I filled up our computer hard drive trying to edit music files I copied off CDs… blah blah.
Nerd Alert: I also loved reading manuals. At the age of.. roughly, seven.
I’d later go on to create my town’s first online website and receive a ton of press, and a neat certificate signed by one of Massachusetts’ more questionable speakers of the house. This turned into a ton of odd-jobs fixing people’s computers at their houses, which turned into a job offer working for an elementary school in the school district I attended, which turned into a contract doing IT work for the town, and eventually a full-time job.
That last paragraph spans about 14 years.
How long have you been doing this?
I usually use my hire date for my first “real” system administration-ish job as a metric for this… so: since January, 2003. Realistically.. a few years before that. The website thing happened in 1998-ish. I consider myself mid-level though.
What was your first job?
I worked at a dry cleaners, for $7.50 an hour. It was hilarious.
Where are you now?
I work at Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a systems administrator.
How do you think technology has changed the world?
I started watching “Mad Men” a few weeks ago (at the time of writing), and I think the most interesting sensation I felt while watching was seeing how news spread as early as 50 years ago. I liked to keep mental note of how many times I thought “can’t they just google that?” Information is easier to find now than it ever has been.
It’s easier to keep in touch with people. One of my best friends is hours away. That certainly wouldn’t have been possible in the past without a lot of long distance calls. And, before that, without a lot of letters. And, before that.. without being in the same place. I think that’s very cool.
Sometimes I wonder about the quality of conversation, though. I try to actually see people face to face more than I do online. It doesn’t always work.
What do you shoot with?
A Canon 40D, with a collection of borrowed lenses; photography can be an expensive hobby.
My favorite lens is the Canon EF-L 16-35 f/2.8. Also the Canon EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 is nice too.
I own a Tamron 17-55 2.8. It works for most situations for me.
I like wide shots; I’m a very big-picture kind of person.
Where have you been?
I’ll count it if I’ve slept there at least one night.
In no particular order or grouping: Massachusetts, New York, Iowa, Maryland, California, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Germany, France, The Bahamas, Arizona, Nevada.
Where do you want to go?
I like using what little French I know. So maybe Southern France? Oregon. Washington. I hear Montana is beautiful. A lot of my friends have done road trips involving all four corners of the US – I’m interested. I’d really like to see Oslo.
What do you like most about your job?
System administration is like solving a puzzle. System administration is like design work – lots of conceptualizing, lots of understanding what the customer wants, lots of “taking it apart, putting it back together differently.” I like both of these things, and I try to bring them together when I can.
Ultimately, I work for my users. And, when they’re happy – when they’ve got a system that does what they’re looking to do in the best way possible – I’m happy.
What’s with the cat?
Truthfully, there’s something about keeping an animal around that’s comforting for me. Before Abby, I had Katie (who developed FIP and I had put her down April ‘07) and Mackenzie (who is now my grandfather’s best friend).
