Hi, I'm Andy West, computer geek, and welcome to the home page for andy.west.name.

domo de l' Andy

I live in a beige-sided bungalow with a large cat named Isis, who is happy not to share a house with the five other cats where she used to live.

The house was remodelled not too long ago. Its walls are white. Its cabinets are white. The carpet on the floors are white, although my pukey cat works hard to change that :).

The house is in Fairmount, a town of twenty-nine hundred people in east central Indiana. Its claim to fame is actor James Dean, who lived his high-school years here and now (as it were) dwells among us. We celebrate him in our annual town festival every last weekend in September. His old high school is just three hundred meters from where my folks live; I used to go there when it was a middle school. It had been saved from the brink of collapse; but its remodelling now hangs in stasis and it is likely that it may never come about.

occupation

During the 1980's I was a professional student at Ball State, working part-time as a bookstacker for its Bracken Library, finally graduating with a bachelor's degree. After various odd jobs I worked as a computer technician for a Muncie bank for over eight years. Then the Bank gave me the boot in late 2003. It was painful at first, but that firing turned out to be the best thing that happened to me. I found better work at Ball State's Bracken Library.

• First, I worked part-time on a mobile development project (read: web site for cellphones and handhelds).
• Then, I worked as an assistant Web developer, where I also assigned work on the public printers and the Mac computers.
• Finally, I landed a permanent job as a full-time professional position at the library, where I have returned to doing computer/network repair and support.

hobbies

As a hobby I work on my computer at home. This takes up so much of my time that I need a separate page to expound on it. A side-effect of my hobby is technical support for my folks and for my two sisters, the teacher (who gave me Isis) and the freelance editor.

As a technie I juggle several Web sites like this one, this one, and this one) and a LiveJournal blog for which this site servers as a repository for past entries. I also read books; I listen to NPR and Internet radio (esp. SOMA FM); and I watch animé (a taste I acquired from my editor sister) and Doctor Who.

My personal Web site includes the Caitlin Clarke Page, the web site dedicated to one of America's best stage actresses. It's a memorial site now, for Ms. Clarke passed away from ovarian cancer on 9 September 2004.