Paragraphs on Politas (aka Mike Dowling)

I can't promise that this page is up to date, since I change it fairly irregularly. For recent events and thoughts, check out my Blog. It's so much easier than updating pages like this one.

I was born in Brisbane, Australia, and my Queensland upbringing still returns to haunt me. There are a few advantages, and a few disadvantages. The best thing is that I must have developed an immunity to mosquito bites at a young age; the worst is that I always feel the cold.

Anyway, at the tender age of nine, I moved with my parents to Canberra, where I have lived until 1999. I discovered computers and how much fun they can be in high school, and then they sort of took over my life.

In 1999, My ex-wife Mel and I bought a small house about 100km northish of Canberra, in a small town called Dalton. It's an odd sort of house, being mostly owner-built by the look of it, and not quite finished in places. It's on a half-acre block, though, has an inground, indoor, heated swimming pool and a sauna, and slate floors throughout (a very good selling point when you have cats, as I do).

My first job was with the Australian Bureau of Statistics. I started out as a Clerk Class One in Banking Statistics, which has to go down as the most tedious job I've ever done. My tasks there mainly involved copying numbers from one sheet of paper to another. It took me a little over a year to get a job as a programmer, and things have improved ever since. I eventually managed to move to Stats' help desk, and from there moved on to Taxation and finally Defence.

Then I made a huge leap by leaving the womb-like security of the Public Service and hurling myself out into the dog-eat-dog world of private enterprise. I worked for ASPECT Computing (now acquired by KAZ Group) as a Technical Consultant, then I worked for Exceed for almost a year, went through a period of crap contracts and unemployment for six months, and now I'm back in the Public Service, working at Centrelink.

While working at Stats, I came across a package called Lotus Notes, and I've ended up making it my specialty. Now of course, we have "Domino, Powered By Notes", but it's still the same at heart. I'm a real fan of Notes; I think it's wonderful. It's just a shame that Lotus have thrown out their Unix clients, and aren't considering a Linux client. Still, apparently the R5 client runs fairly happily under WINE. Haven't tried yet, and we're up to R6.5 now.

I started seriously playing around with Linux in 1998, and I'm building my skills with that, focusing on network security. I run a Linux server at home to manage my home network, and one of these days, I'll get around to setting up my own domain with a little Linux box to handle my email, newsgroups and finally get my website off Geocities.

I went to a lot of meetings while working at Stats, during which I was often bored. To amuse myself, I drew pictures of the other people in the meetings. You can find some of the better ones here, along with some other artwork of mine. If you recognise yourself amongst these pictures, you can take a copy to use if you wish. Or you could e-mail me, and I'll send you a larger copy if you want. I do retain the copyright on all of my artwork.

I hate coffee. I really hate coffee. I mean, a lot of people I have met say they hate coffee, but then they say that they like the smell. I hate everything about coffee. I hate its taste, its smell, its colour. I hate the vacuum-packed bags of beans, the shape of the beans, the mess left behind on the mouth of the stupid little grinders in the supermarkets. It's the smell that really gets to me, though. When I walk down the aisle where the coffee is, I know when someone's used the grinder recently, and I have to hurry past. I have been known to leave rooms because of the overpowering smell of people drinking coffee. Whenever I am in a non-smoking period of my life, my distaste for coffee increases.

I like reading Science Fiction. My favourite author of all time would have to be Isaac Asimov, but it's a close call between him and a few others, such as Anne McCaffrey, William Gibson, Piers Anthony, Julian May and Christopher Stasheff. I also read a lot of Fantasy. Mercedes Lackey is I think my favourite Fantasy author. Recently I've been reading a lot of historical war books, which I was attracted to by Bernard Cornwall's Sharpe Novels. That lead me to C.S. Forester's Hornblower books, and now I'm hooked on the "age of sail" period, enough that I'm working on a GURPS campaign book for the period. Well, I started it, anyway.

Roleplaying and other forms of gaming are an ongoing hobby of mine. I particularly enjoy the boardgame Diplomacy, and I play with the Diplomacy Club of Canberra fairly regularly.

I have three cats: Ursula (black f), Xander (black m) and Willow (grey m), and sometimes I have a dog, Kayla (Siberian Husky, f). I don't know how people live without cats, though there are times when I imagine it could be pleasant.

A while ago, I found out about a web site where you can become ordained as a minister on the spot. What the hell, I thought, let's give it a whirl! Before you follow that link though, my advice is "Never send money to kooks and weirdos." I certainly don't intend to send any money to this particular bloke, whether he fits into one of those categories or not. I have to say that I wouldn't have become a minister of the church if I didn't agree with its tenets, though.  There are only two: to promote freedom of religion and to do that which is right.