Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 14:49:44 GMT Server: NCSA/1.5 Content-type: text/html Last-modified: Sun, 11 Aug 1996 02:47:46 GMT Content-length: 6366 Bolo

Bolo

Greetings! I'm Bolo, although my parents christened me Josef Thomas Burger when I rolled from the ways. Call me bolo... everyone, including my parents, does!

I'm not quite sure who I am or what I do; here's the best explanation I've developed so far. In many ways the question who is a person is defined by what that person does. In my case, I'm a software engineer who develops semi-real-time operating systems and utilities. I've been doing that for the last 5 years. Before that, I was a BSD Kernel Hacker and Unix system Administrator.

I create things, and that's why I'm an engineer. An engineer applies science to the design and construction of "things", and that's what I do. You can't really call me a scientist, though I have a Computer Sciences degree. I'm more of ... a Mad Scientist!!! The guy who pays me, David DeWitt, (who is a scientist) shudders at my methodology. On the other hand, I'm right most of the time. It works for me, eh?

When I'm not designing, architecting, and implementing new operating system type things, I'm often doing the same to other things. Some of those other things are my FORTH system, Woodworking, Home Control, Drawing, and Brewing Beer.

To completely relax, try sleep -- it works wonders! But sleep is not enough, although my roommate disagrees with me. Other pursuits which I enjoy are flying, reading science fiction, comic books, railroading (both prototype and model), and role playing games.

You may notice images of the most sublime striped creature, the Tiger in appearing throughout my WWW pages. Tiger has taken me for his own. William Blake's poem Tyger! Tyger! puts words to the wonder of Tiger.

On the Road Again

In a tremendous leap of insanity :-) I've purchased a house! The address of my new place is
Josef T. Burger
6301 East Gate Road
Monona, WI 53716-3910
The new voice number is 608-223-0486.

Boring Work

Work at work drives me bananas. It used to be fun, but now it's a grunge. Either I've matured, or the jobs has changed over the years, perhaps some of both.

It seems like we get new parallel computers every other month, and I have to beat them into submission, while doing everything else under the sun, moon, and stars.

I'm currently working on the following projects for Dave DeWitt, a world- (in)famous database hacker!

All this, and a whole lot more, occurs at the Computer Sciences Department of the Madison Campus of the University of Wisconsin. The campus is located in Madison, WI (USA) on a peninsula between two of Madison's five lakes.

Not so boring work

In addition to my work for the UW, I also consult. I don't provide solutions, but rather advice and technical expertise. Helping out Internet Providers, porting software to new systems, reviving old computers, and other oddball tasks are the kinds of things I do. I'd tell you to visit my web server but I haven't had time to do anything there, so it's mostly empty, except for the home pages of some friends.

Other activities

Uwvax

I operate the uwvax Usenet News and UUCP site in my free time. "All the news thats fit to print", or something along those lines. uwvax, a CS department computer, has been part of Usenet, UUCP, and the internet for longer than I've worked here.

Along the same lines, I am also the Computer Sciences Department's volunteer news master. Much of that goes hand-in-hand with running uwvax. However, trying to take care of 3 or 4 news readers across 5 or 6 different architectures is a trying task. I don't have much time to take care of that software.

Organizations

I am a member of the following organizations. I don't always agree with what they do, but they often have a lot of good benefits, for both members and other users of their communities.

Blitz-Drinking

When I was in school a horde of friends and myself visited a local pub every Thursday night. This place, The Essen Haus, imports beers from all over the world. Slowly we worked our way through their entire selection.

Over the years we've developed new acquaintances, and many of them became part of our loftily-labelled Blitz Drinking Society. We're rather diverse ... some of the members don't drink! We meet once a year at the Essen Haus during the time of Octoberfest to have a weekend of fun.

Chud has accumulated a short history and whatnot of this charade.


Bolo's Home Page
Last modified: Tue Apr 2 23:31:48 CST 1996
Bolo (Josef Burger) <bolo@cs.wisc.edu>