About

This is David.  David is the primary writer on this blog, the NWDuck Blog.

David grew up in Southern California.  He hated Southern California.  His daughters (and grandkids) have a different perspective, since they live there.

In the late ’60s, David took a motorcycle trip with a few friends.  They went from Southern California up through Oregon and Washington, over to Idaho, up into Canada (think Banff — where it can still snow in May), west to Vancouver, British Columbia, then down Highway 1 back to the point of beginning.  One of the favorite places on this trip was Eugene, Oregon, home of the University of Oregon (go Ducks!).

A year later, in 1969, he, along with one of the other motorcyclists, moved up to Eugene, Oregon.  They eventually found a job working on the Pacific Crest Trail, but an early snow (October) put an end to that employment, and no other job was found.  Back to California.

In 1982 he tried again.  After working in Portland for several months David decided it was time to buckle down and finish his degree.  He enrolled at the University of Oregon and graduated with a double major (Computer Science and Economics).  With degree in hand he applied for all of the computer programming jobs he could find.  That was a grand total of about three, and each position had hundreds of applicants.  Yep, back to California again (where he had four offers within two weeks).

Early 1990s, time to try again.  A pattern had developed — try to relocate to Eugene every decade or so.  This time he had an edge.  Telecommuting!  Live in Oregon, but work for a company in California.  He was so confident he bought a house.  Getting laid off several months later wasn’t part of the plan.

But David persevered!  He found enough temporary work to pay the mortgage, and eventually found full-time employment — the stars were beginning to align!  David kept that full-time job for over seventeen years, then decided he was old enough to retire.

Retirement lasted about a year, when David started a small business making craft quinine tonic concentrates.  After a few years, David’s body spoke to him.  “Your back can’t take this any longer.  How about retiring again?”  Seemed to make sense, so he did.

David is now living quite contentedly with his beautiful wife, a somewhat crazed silver Lab who lives to chase squirrels (and turkeys and deer and anything else that moves), and their aging and arthritic cat (the birds are safe).

Oh, and he’s writing a novel.  All of you aspiring writers should take a look at NaNoWriMo — National Novel Writing Month — it challenges you to write 50,000 words in the month of November.  Fun!!