Jeff Hall

Elizabeth:  What influenced your decison to volunteer at Sime~Gen?

Jeff:  Well what lured me in the first time is the fact that I had read the book "Channels Destiny." Being curious I immediately went looking for the author and found Sime~Gen. Well after browsing the site, I came across a help wanted sign :) Well at the time I was just learning how to code "HTML"  the languague of the web pages and one of the request's were for someone who knew code and that could help. Well this was perfect, I could practice my code writing skill and could also help someone in the process. This was the best of all worlds. I immediately contacted Sime~Gen and was pretty much accepted on the spot. I helped on numerous parts of the site so my fingerprints are all over the place in Sime~Gen. Life got in the way and I had to leave.

Elizabeth:  Since joining what have you learned?

Jeff:  Well since the first time  my skills in coding have improved greatly. I look at my old pages here and chuckle a little. But you have to learn to walk before you can run. Paitence was never a problem with me so I tend to stick with things until I make it work sometime spending hours on something that I knew at the time I should have been able to do in just  a short time. I am not afraid of new things and trying out new things.

Elizabeth:  How does your Sime~Gen skills effect your work?

Jeff:  Although what I do/learn has really no relation with what I do for a living, I did build a web based part's browser for a major customer. Took a couple of weeks to get the kinks out of it but it is being presented to the customer Thursday of this week (05/29/2003). So In essence, Sime~Gen allowed me the freedom to develop my skills in html and allowed the company I work for to present our major customer with a tool that no one in our industry has ever presented to a customer before.

Elizabeth:  What kind of "hats" do you handle?

Jeff:  Well that is pretty much up to Patric as I will be getting my direction from him. I have spoken to him at length and we have some really interesting challenges ahead of us of which I am looking forward to. If I were to sum it up, I will probably be doing mostly web/server related items. Most of my help you folks will never see, although I may be called upon to generate a web site or 2 but for the most part, most of what I will be doing is the items that will allow Sime~Gen to stay up an running and improve it's overall apperance to the web community.

Elizabeth:  What is your most current project?

Jeff:  Well to be honest nothing at the moment after all I have only been back a couple of days. I am sure my grace period will end soon, knowing Patric

Elizabeth:  How did volunteering help you?

Jeff:  I am a helper by nature. I enjoy helping other where possible. I also love a challenge and Sime~Gen presents those items in abundance.

Elizabeth:  Who did you meet?

Jeff:  I have met several people during my previous association with Sime~Gen. I have met the principles here but mostly in passing. The ones I had the most dealings with is Patric, Karen, and, previously, Marge.

Elizabeth:  Make lasting friendships with?

Jeff:  Well if my welcome home as any indication looks as though I had friends I didn't even know about and if you don't mind I would like to say to them that they warmed my heart enormously. I had left Sime~Gen because of personal issues and also felt like I was not really appreciated or welcomed (this was not by the principals let me make that very clear). But if my experiances to date are any indication of how much I really was then I am truly sorry I left in the first place. I guess my word of advice for all is that for the most part people here are volunteers who give up a section of their life to help something they believe in. The part of their life they donate can never be returned, some can give more, some less but the fact is many do give and that part of their life they donated is now a piece of Sime~Gen forever. They should NEVER be treated like their contribution is worthless or demeaned in any way. I think sometime in the hussle and bussle of life this important fact is totally overlooked

Elizabeth:  Since you worked previously with Sime~Gen, please use that experience also.  If there's anything else that you feel needs mentioning, let me know so that I can add it to your Spotlight's page.  Any links?  Any anything you feel that the rest of Sime~Gen needs to know how wonderful you are.

Jeff:  Wonderful...no. Friendly.....YES stubborn....yes patient....yes.

Well to give you a little background on myself. To those who do not know me, my name is Jeff Hall. I am 46 years old and an office manager for a company called Bearing Distributors. I have a wonder wife of 23 years, I have 3 kids, 4 grandkids, 4 dogs and 1 cat. I avid reader of all things science fiction, I am a computer geek big time.I love games and am an avid gamer. I just finished beta testing a game called "Planet Side," was a past beta tester of a game called "Legacy Online" (both you can reach from the links section of my website http://www.dragonlov.com This is the location of my new endeavor of building what is called a database driving web site. Coding can be changed on the fly AND from a web browser I don't need ftp to do it so I have been excited about that for a while. I am still learning so it's pretty empty at the moment but please stop by and say hi.