Who are we?
We lived in Canberra and Sydney while I was growing up. I went to Bradbury Primary School in Campbelltown, NSW, then Hurlstone Agricultural High School at Glenfield NSW.
After finishing high school, I worked at the Reserve Bank of Australia for almost 3 years, then at Shell Refining for almost 2. At that point, I realised I wasn't going to get out of boring clerical work without a degree, so I quit work to start university full-time.
I spent from January 1991 until June 1994 at the University of Western Sydney, Macarthur, (now the University of Western Sydney, Campelltown Campus)eventually graduating with a Bachelor of Business (Computing and Information Management).
After graduating, I worked as a programmer/analyst for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia for 2 and a half years, then moved to the US to be with Patrice.
The company that hired me and moved me to the US on a work visa was Syntel. I was supposed to be working in San Fransisco but after a week was handed a plane ticket for Detroit and sent there to work on an outsourcing project for Ford. I spent a joyous (or not) year and a half in Detroit then got transferred to the south of England where I worked on a Y2K project at Zurich Insurance.
After 3 months doing that, Patrice and I came back to the States, packed all our stuff away into storage, drove to Omaha and got married. 3 days after the wedding, I headed back to England and Zurich for a different project on the same software. Patrice joined me after a couple of weeks.
We did manage to do some cool stuff while we were in England. We went to various castles and palaces. We did a long weekend in Paris and did all of the standard tourist stuff, being fairly standard tourists at that point. We visited relations in Scotland, drank quantities of very good whiskey, drove around Loch Ness (no visible monsters) and failed to find a kilt to fit me for a reasonable price. We went to Stonehenge (it rocks! or possibly, it's rocks!) and the Isle of Wight and a vast number of pubs. We did a few visits to London and again acted like standard tourists. We decided that 6 months is too long to live in England. After a second 3 months, it was finally time for a honeymoon.
We went home (for me) to Australia for 2 months. We had another wedding ceremony, and did some travelling around. We went to the Great Barrier Reef and to the South Australian wine country. We visited friends in Canberra and Melbourne and Sydney and generally had a great time.
It seemed like no time, but we had to head back to the States since Syntel was expecting me to start on my next work project. We got back to Omaha and contacted Syntel to find out where we were moving to next. They never told me. So I started looking around for a different company to work for. Advanced Business Consultants had a position going at the State of Nebraska. I was hired in and proceeded to get bored quite quickly.
Just after I started working there, the fraternity that Patrice was in when she was doing her bachelors degree had a big anniversary and invited alumni to attend, so we did. The new Dean of the College of Business was initated and in her speech at the banquet, mentioned that the University of Nebraska-Lincoln was starting a brand new honors MBA program with a computing major. So I went and found out about it. After everything falling into place, I was accepted as an MBA student in the first year of the J D Edwards Honors Program in Computer Science and Management. This is a pretty cool program where we do 2/3 regular MBA classes and 1/3 computer science classes. We get a full tuition scholarship and an assistanceship of $20,000 per year to live on. And we don't even have to teach!
Graduation was in May 2001. My Mother came over from Australia for it, and we had a big combined party, since Patrice received her masters at the same time (she majored in Human Resources). It was most fun.
While Mum was here, we did a road trip to Chicago, and generaly relaxed a bit. Tried to catch up on some sleep. The day after Mum left, we packed up the car (our beloved Subaru Outback Sedan) and drove to Las Vegas to look for jobs. There are a few reasons we want to live in Las Vegas: It has a good climate, stuff to do at night, and we'd get plenty of visitors.
We had been staying in a weekly hotel, more like a 1 bedroom furnished apartment, called Town and Country Manor III while we looked for jobs. Patrice was offered a job at GES Expositions doing a job she'd really like and be good at, that actually paid decently. So I flew back to Nebraska, packed up our apartment and put all of our stuff on a mover's truck, then drove the other car back down to Vegas. The day before she was due to start, the job was put on hold. How frustrating! I'm still looking. Also how frustrating!
That brings you up to date as of October 18, 2001. I'm planning on keeping this updated reasonably often as time permits, so check back once in a while if you want.
Well...it's June, 2003. Good to see I'm updating this site regularly, huh? What's happened in the last year and a half?
Patrice did start that job with GES. She was there for a while (about a year) and getting frustrated, when she applied to a company called Wackenhut. They do security stuff. Well, she got the job there, with a HUGE raise and work that actually challenges her and she enjoys. So that's good.
I got a job. Well, four, actually. First, I got approved to teach at the University of Phoenix mainly teaching database design and usage classes. As of now (June 03), I'm still doing that. It's a part-time job, nights only, and pays ok for what it is. The first class I taught started in March 2002.
In February 2002, I got a call from one of the guys I had met while I was "networking" looking for a job. Aaron works for Staffmark and needed someone to work as a temp webmaster for the Culinary Union. They needed someone to build them a bilingual website, and even though I speak no spanish, I could do it for them. Check it out. I'm kinda proud of it as my 1st website.
Ok...so I was pretty much into a maintenance phase (which was getting a little boring) when I finally got offered a real job. System administrator for AMR which is an ambulance company. Turned out to be not what I was hoping for as more than 1/2 of the job was confirming billing addresses for insurance companies so they could be entered into the billing system. I felt a litlle underutilised.
I'd been with AMR for about 2 months when I got a call for an interview with the Clark County School District. I want to point out that I had applied with CCSD 2 months before I even started with AMR. Anyway, I went for a panel interview on tuesday, had a phone interview on wednesday, was offered the job and gave my 2 weeks notice on thursday and started with the district as a Senior Systems Analyst the friday 2 weeks later, June 21st, 2002.
We bought a house last June (2002) in the Township of Paradise (but the mailing address is Las Vegas) and there are some pictures on the pictures page. We bought a MINI Cooper S to replace my Eagle Talon. I broke the engine in the Talon. So now I drive a supercharged go-kart. :) There are pictures of Alice (Cooper) on that same pictures page.
We've been working huge amounts on the house. Removing ugly wallpaper (every room was wallpapered, and it was ALL ugly) and painting. I replaced every power-point (outlet to Americans) and light switch in the house. I replaced almost every light fitting. I've worked on the automated watering system, the security lights, the plumbing, the thermostat, both toilets...none of it was huge stuff, and the house really was in good shape, it's just partly keeping it in good repair and partly making it "our house".
We're currently saving for a trip to Australia in November. Other than that, not much is happening. I'll try to update this more often.
A copy of our bookmarks
Andrew Ross
