Neil Schneider says: Lan is the semi-official publicist for the Kernel-Panic Linux User Group.

Professional

I've been working as a computer consultant (with occasional "real" jobs) since 1981, starting out as a CP/M consultant to Megatech in Sorrento Valley. Over that time I have done C development, data base application programming, and starting in about 1989, I've specialized in software configuration management. My consulting carried me from San Diego to Baltimore, Washington, DC, New York City, and then after seemingly interminable short engagements all over the East and Midwest, back to San Diego.

I'm presently employed at Alaris Medical Systems (Sorrento Valley/Mira Mesa again) as a "Principal Software Configuration Analyst" (pshew), one of those "real" jobs. I love the company, and can't conceive of leaving voluntarily ... yet, anyway.

Linux

I used to vow that I never wanted to work on an OS that I couldn't be running in my rumpus room. Even so, I became fascinated by Unix rather early, and studied it at UCSD and SDSU during my patchwork informal postgrad education.

I came to Linux (if I recall correctly) at Red Hat 4.0 or 4.1, whenever that was. To be honest, I had low expectations, so its completeness and polish blew me away. I still love it and am still with Red Hat, not (I hope) through any partisan prejudice, but because they've never done anything that drove me away.

We run Red Hat 7.3 on our home network (two servers, one laptop and one workstation) with two Windoze 98 machines networked in for my wife and 7-year-old son. The whole network lives behind a 486-66 dual NIC "shoebox" firewall running Coyote Linux and Seattle Seawall - the best damn $29 I ever invested in hardware.

I spend most of my free Linux time dabbling in client/server database applications using PostgreSQL? as the back end and Tcl/Tk, Perl, and other scripting languages as the front end and glue. I also like to experiment with Linux based SCM systems (eagerly awaiting the 1.0 release of Subversion).

Family

I've been married 14 years to Janet Anne Lunn, and it just keeps getting better. We have a son, Alexander (the 7-year-old mentioned above) who was born in Changzhou, China, in September of 1995 and adopted eight months later.

I have a daughter by my first marriage, Kate Fisher, who lives in Eugene Oregon with her husband, Dean, and my grandson, Bevan ("Van") Fisher, who talks almost as much as I do. Kate is a first year law student at UofO?. I'm very proud of her.

Janet, Alex and I have started the process for a second China adoption, which will probably add a new child to our family some time next year.

Hobbies and Links

Yes, there's more to come ...