About Me
Hello there! My name is Chris Willcock. I experienced the change to widely available internet access as a teenager in the mid-90s. My early interests in video games led me to an amazing community of volunteers, working on fan translations of foreign-language-only titles. I connected with a mentor, himself a 30-something bachelor with several degrees in mathematics. Together we explored reverse-engineering hardware of the NES, and software at the assembly level. I contributed to works such as the translation of Musashi no Bouken, from the original Japanese to English. The noted contributor Yukelon is a younger me.
I have continued the practices of self-determination and self-empowerment through knowledge and control of computer systems ever since, though my specific area of interest has moved away from video games and tends to be fluid. I am grateful that I had a mentor. He gave me the fair criticism I needed, generous training hours, and insight that comes from years of practice. I try to pay-it-forward by being a mentor and giving of myself as I have received from others.
I am a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE; 2016) and in my local community, I am a founding member of the Summerside Makerspace. I co-organize and co-host a bi-weekly Homebrew Website Club meetup (since 2019-04-18).
My local park is named to honour Canadian gold-medal-winning Olympian, Heather Moyse. I like running through there to the track. It takes sixty (60) seconds.
Trivia / Interests
- I was born in Newport, Rhode Island, USA
- I was a technical editor on O’Reilly Media’s Programming PHP, Third Edition.
- I have a vocational diploma in electronics engineering, from RCC College of Technology in Toronto, Ontario
- I live on an island of 5 660 km2 (2,190 sq mi) on the Atlantic coast of Canada
- I live downtown, near the ocean, in a city of about 15 000 people
- I am married and have five children
- I work from a home office on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and commute to work in the other city, 64.2 km (39.9 mi) each way on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
- I worked in telecommunications for about eight years for the local municipality:
- installing home internet connections in rural areas spread over 3 000 km2 (1200 sq mi)
- later, as an infrastructure technician, installing and servicing wireless broadband internet equipment at heights up to 70 metres (230 ft), concurrently as a systems and operations specialist with about 100 network switches and dozens of bare-metal servers running the full suite of ISP services
- finally, as a business development manager concurrently with corporate IT management / security, and electrical utility automation software development
- I bootstrapped and managed my own business, with five employees, for four years before accepting my current employment
- I prefer a strong and hoppy India Pale Ale straight from the local brewery, typically stay away from stout and only imbibe in the mass-market stuff to be polite! It’s rare to have spirits but I enjoy a little bit, once in awhile.
- I have partial-sleeve tattoos on both arms