Santa Matt's ramblings

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Showing posts from July, 2023

Now for Something Different

Today I'm going to do something here in my blog I've never done before. I'm going to rant! First some background. I spent the last thirty years of my career writing software. The first 10 of those years I still worked for Midnight Burglar Alarm. When the upper management found out I could write software the stopped using their expensive consultant and I took over hardware maintenance and software development. We had 3 mini mainframe computers based on the Data General Nova series. No graphics just accessed via ASCII dumb terminals. I wrote accounting AR and AP systems, Inventory and CSM systems. Eventually we transitions to a PC network (which I engineered) and purchased software from a development company. In my personal life I worked with Timex Sinclairs, Atari personal computers and eventually PC's, Building, modifying and programing them. When ADT bought Midnight Burglar Alarm I was let go. I immediately got a job with the development company that had provided MBA...

God doesn't make junk!

Due to changes in my Christmas schedule I was finally available to appear as Santa at the "YMCA Santa Run". So on the appointed day and time I found myself with Mrs. Claus posing for pictures and talking with the runners as I moved to the area the Y had setup for me. Families would come and get pictures with Santa and Mrs. Claus. One of the people that came for pictures was a grandma and three grand children, a brother and sister around 5 years old and their cousin a girls about 7 or 8. It was immediately apparent that the brother and sister were her favorites. She seemed to only want pictures of them with Santa. At one point when the older child tried to be in a picture grandma told her "Get out of the picture. You're ruining the picture." After several minutes of this the little girl was in the corner crying and I was seething but I held my temper in check. When grandma finished getting her pictures she took the two younger children aside to look at the pictur...

Biography

When I left High School, I attended Michigan Tech. I was studying Electronics and trying to decide what I wanted to do. I had gone there for Engineering but really wanted a more hands on career. While there I met a girl named Monica Bobak and we became close. I left school in the beginning of 1972 to find work. I was tired of school and tired of never having any money. Maybe not my best decision as I had a draft number of 63. I enlisted in June of 1972, before I could get drafted. I enlisted for 4 years to get into the army electronics school I wanted. In march of 1973 Monica and I were married. By September 1973, Monica was pregnant and I was on my way to Germany. Monica joined me there later. We had two children while we were in Germany, James in 74 and Angela in 76. In September of 76 we returned from Germany, I got out of the Army and got a job here in Flint working for Midnight Burglar Alarm. I started there installing alarm systems for $3.50 per hour, can you imagine that? In 82 Pamela was born. I worked for Midnight for 22 years and then they were bought and the new owner did not want me. In the interim I had done pretty much every job in the company and ended up creating and managing the IT department. So at 46 years old I am out of work. Fortunately I had learned to program computers and write software along the way so I got a job working as a programmer for a company that writes accounting software for the alarm and security industry. Best job I ever had. Let me see, down through the years, Angela married Ralph Prince and they are the parents of my three grand children Desdemona, Seraphim and AJ. They all live and work in Lansing. James married Adrienne, they don't have any children yet. They live here in Flint and James works for a company called OTC, writing sowtware. Pam got master's degree, She lives in Davison. She works as afund raiser for the YWCA part time while also working self-employed as a grant writer and artist. She married Zack Bailey and they brought my fourth grand child into the world, Patrick. I am retired now and spend most of my free time writing software for hand held electronics and robots. I'm very active in my faith. I worked for a time at being a free lance photographer as a side job. We added a second story to our house and have remodeled pretty much every room. I have made a workshop in the basement where I build my projects. I have also published a cook book "Santa's Cookbook for Men" published through and available on Amazon. I also work as Santa Claus, not for money, just for charities. I am a Hospice volunteer and do Santa there and in adult group homes, cancer centers, hospitals those kinds of things. I have had training in working with hospice patients, autistic children and wounded soldiers. I belong to the Knights of Columbus and Santa America.