Slashback Associates is a world-wide conglomerate, spanning... Well, no. It’s just me, John Homerstad. If you’re actually curious about me, here is a page I had to do for a writing class while attending the University of Utah, in Salt Lake City, Utah, containing, oddly enough, some papers I had to write for ethics and cross-cultural psychology classes.
I attended Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, for too many years, working toward an Electrical Engineering degree. My grades were pretty lousy... except for the two semesters I managed to not work full-time. Those semesters my GPA was over 3.9. Ah well.
My heart is still with Texas Tech. I had started there as a music major, which I quickly abandoned when I discovered my roommate’s calculus homework was far more interesting than practicing. I was still in the university bands for many years, and particularly enjoyed the marching band, the Goin’ Band from Raiderland, which is, of course, the best band anywhere, and the Court Jesters, which is, of course, the best basketball band anywhere.
I finally finished a Computer Engineering degree after my wife and I were at a small party where someone said “Well, haha, we’re all college graduates here.” We didn’t correct her, but my wife, who had three degrees, started glaring at me about this until I matriculated at the U (the real U), where we were both employed at the time. With the support of the university system, which encouraged employees to take classes, but especially the support and encouragement from my wife, I completed my degree at the age of 41. My GPA at the U was much better, and I was invited to join Tau Beta Pi, the Engineering Honor Society. I did join, and I guess I’m proud of that; why else would I boast of it here?
I carefully timed my graduation to coincide with a bit of a recession, especially in the computer field, so there were thousands of unemployed, experienced programmers competing for jobs. I worked several years as a hardware tech, which I find both interesting and frustrating. I think my favorite was the gentleman who kept yelling that he was losing “thousands of dollars per day” while I tried to fix his computer. I finally pointed out that we could sell him a brand new, much more capable computer for $400, which he seemed to find rather disconcerting. Naturally, I also did a lot of telephone tech support, which I find quite loathsome. For those of you who don’t already know, 90 plus percent of the time, after careful testing and research, the correct answer is “There’s something wrong with your computer.”, which many people find extremely irritating.
My wife died several years back from cancer. We (since I did help) held our own quite well, thank you, until it went into her brain. Then you die in six months, which she did. During that time I did loads of research into many treatment modalities, and we used a variety of “alternative medicine” techniques. The doctors and radiologists kept saying that they couldn’t believe the test results: tumors shrinking and disappearing, beautiful blood work, and so forth. But the brain... Ah well.
I still live in Salt Lake City and work from home as a programming contractor. I suppose I should say Slashback Associates takes the contracts and I work for Slashback Associates. If you read my college page, you may have gathered that I am Christian. In fact, I am a rather fundamentalist Christian, and attend Salt Lake City Foursquare Church, where I am the bass player... or sound man... whatever. I also help out with our teen worship team. Yikes! Teen ministry? How did I let that happen? I must be insane. Actually, it’s a great deal of fun, to be honest.
Some of you may find it odd that I also enjoy science fiction a great deal. In particular, I’m currently enjoying The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy; this may have had some subtle influence on the wording of this page...
If you don’t know Jesus... He’s the only answer there is.
God bless you. He will if you let him.
