The (Ex) Musical Career of David Regenold
David Regenold (that's me) was born in Tennessee. After nearly succumbing to some dreaded infant disease, his parents loaded up the truck and moved to the east 100 miles or so and settled at the foot hills of the Appalachia in a place called Elizabethton.
There the young boy lived in peace until at age 14 his younger brother Jimmy (who was 11 at the time) turned him on to a beer and life was never to be the same again. His parents went gray and aged considerably over the next 4 to 5 years.
Picking up drums at age 15, The young DaveR joined up with several rowdy Rock'N'Roll bands but was unable to make a decent living doing so. Then one night he got a call from some good people whose drummer had disappeared or quit or something and that Dave come in for an audition. The young Regenold really didn't like country music very much but - money is money.
The band - known as Jerry's Road-runners because the lead singer's name was Jerry (not Garcia although come to think of it they looked a lot a like and met similar fates in life) - hired Dave and spent the next two years sneaking him into VFWs, Moose, and Elks clubs (because he was still under legal drinking age) to play with them. The five piece band consisted of Jerry, a bass player named Rick (who sang for the first two hours and then got so drunk the next two hours that we'd have to secretly turn his mike off so that he would only think he was singing), Tommy on keyboards, and lead guitarist Donnie Davenport. Actually those were quite fun years and Dave was able to continue despite his hatred for country music by dousing himself with a half-case of beer during each gig (one does not have to be too sober to play boom-tap-boom-tap-boom-tap over and over and over again as all country music does). Unfortunately Jerry had a heart attack while driving his car on a deserted country road one night, thus ending any hope that Jerry and the Road-runners could ever get back together to make that platinum reunion album. The only photograph in existance today of this long-lost classic country band is shown below. (Dave is the red-neck standing on the far right).
Following the demise of Jerry and the Road-runners, Dave, Donnie, and Rick joined up with another band that can only be described as some sick DJ's idea of a joke. The sick DJ will rename nameless (cause I can't remember his name), but he went under the stage name of Sneaky Snake and was accompanied on stage (for at least part of the show) by two female dancers known as the Sun Down Dancing Girls. Only problem was that they weren't really females at all - they were two drunken old men who dressed in drag and danced around and sang like compete idiots for an hour. But the crowd, strangely, loved it and the band made some pretty big bucks for about a year before things went sour. Things went sour basically because the strain of touring (it was 10 whole miles from the VFW in Elizabethton to the Moose club in Bristol) began to take its toll on the band members.
Dave was able to get in and out of a few rock bands which never made much money but were a lot more fun to play in. The first of these was know as "White Horse" and was the first rock band (and the last) to do a Saturday night gig in the Elizabethton High gym. The concert began with an incredible (as in incredible the audience didn't walk out on it) rendition of Hendrix's version of the star-spangled banner and ended with an equally audacious version of "Purple Haze". Otherwise the concert was historically notable only in that it alerted the local police department in this small hamlet of 12,000 that it was high time to up the headcount of the force. No pictures of this band or the other rock bands Dave was in are known to exist today other than the one below which had no name but could have been called the "Regenold Trio" since the members were Dave's brothers (from left to right, Robert, David, and Jim).
Educational Background
Upon graduating from high school in 1975, I found myself directionless without a plan. Following in my older brother's footsteps, I entered a small vocational-technical school in East Tennessee (now called Northeast State Technical Community College) and earned a two-year associate degree in electronics. That experience solidified my interest in electronics and I went on to pursue a Bachelors Degree in Electrical Engineering from The University of Tennessee and a Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering from The Georgia Institute of Technology.Professional Background
I began my career in Electrical Engineering with NASA at the JFK Space Center through a cooperative-education program at the University of Tennessee. Those were exciting times at the space center as NASA was in the process of getting the space shuttle program off the ground. The cooperative-education program required that I work every other semester, and I was fortunate in that the launch of the first space shuttle occurred in 1981 during the last of my five rotations. I viewed the launch from the closest point at which a human was allowed to stand (other than the astronauts) and had an unforgettable view.After obtaining my Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering, I worked for General Electric in their semiconductor operations group in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. After three years at General Electric, I went to work for Intel Corporation in Chandler, Arizona where I remained for the next twenty years. I have worked on numerous projects over the years ranging from 8-bit microcontrollers used in automotive engine controls to Intel's 64-bit Itanium microprocessor. I currently work in a team that implements microprocessors for use in PDAs, cell phones, and numerous types of network products. Our division was sold in 2006 to Marvell Semiconductor where we still implement microprocessors for use in PDAs, cell phones, and numerous types of network products (we're just not part of Intel anymore).
The non-professional side of life
I was born at the University of Tennessee Hospital in Knoxville where my father was the lab supervisor. Shortly thereafter, we moved further east to the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains where I spent all of my childhood. Attempting to establish a musical career at an early age, I began playing drums for a local Rock-n-Roll band (these details were covered a little more humorously above). Unfortunately, there were few venues in East Tennessee that would actually pay a band to play that style of music (and those that did held a maximum of about 10 patrons). Alas, I had to join a country band, but at least was able to make enough money to pay off the loan on my drum kit and to buy a motorcycle. The music career (such as it was) ended 30 (or so) years ago when I went to college (and would not be picked up again until about 5 years ago when I built my own guitar and started taking guitar lessons).It was in college that I met my wife . . . We were lab partners. We married after graduating with our Masters Degrees and now have two sons; one 18-year-old who is already wrapping up his Sophomore year in college and a 12-year-old in the 6th grade. My wife works at Intel as a lead microprocessor architect. My sons were/are both in scouting, and though I flunked scouting myself, my oldest son obtained the rank of Eagle, and my younger son is now working his way through the boy scout ranks. He is also a member of the Phoenix Boys Choir.
When we're not working (sigh, which is most the time) we like to travel. In summer summer of 2008 we embarked on an unforgettable one-month journey to Vietnam. My wife had been airlifted out of Saigon in April of 1975 and this was her first trip back. It was an unbelievable adventure. My wife's success at tracking down and meeting her relatives exceeded her wildest expectations. Her parents' families had been separated in the early 50's when the country was politically divided in half, so it had been more than 50 years since any member of the family now in the USA had met eye-to-eye with members of the family left behind in Hanoi. Anyway, It was a great trip and I could go on and on about it. Below are a few pictures from the trip.
Ben Thanh Market in Saigon
Cruising down the Mekong Delta
Turtle Island on Lake Hoan Kiem in Hanoi
The "Fighting Cocks" on Ha Long Bay
Rice Farming in Sapa
Nha Trang
Resort in Da Lat
