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My computer addiction. . .
. . .had become immense by this time. In 1982 an orthopod whom I consulted after a bad fall told me I'd be in a wheel
chair before long. I said Bad Words to him, but went to the pain clinic like a good girl.
I also bought an Atari 800 with a real keyboard and 64K memory. Uptown. Taught myself BASIC, which translated quite nicely
later to Lotus and Symphony, and eventually to Excel and Access.
I took a job at Neustedters, a fashionable Colorado chain. Didn't want it at first, but soon became very fond of the
Neustedter family. So after the bankruptcy and demise of this last "real job", I was stuck. Took a sabbatical in Santa Barbara,
but other than the grapes in the parking lot on my way to work, it wasn't the best.
When son Chris and I arrived back in Denver, the chief accountant from the defunct "real job" asked me to help with a
Symphony application. Paid me $55 an hour. Wow, what a concept.
A sister-in-law of the boss of the "real job" suggested me to set up the fundraising database for Girl Scouts, Mile Hi
Council. I bought them a PC and went to work.
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| Circa 1983 |
Ad Hoc Associates
So there I was with a couple of computers and a business, for Pete's sake. What to name it. What was I doing? Which is
how ad hoc came into being. We did whatever computers could do, we being me and a good pal from Girl Scouts. It also
translated to AHA!, which we thought was pretty cool.
P.S.
I never did get into that wheelchair, you know. If you say Bad Words to an orthopod, it fixes it.
AHA! Finds the Perfect Client
From writing a fundraising database, I meandered into desktop publishing, designed spreadsheets, and even taught and
wrote manuals for data bases and presentation graphics.. When I demolished my PowerPoint Web site, I kept the CV, which can
be found on this site.
One day someone brought Pete to my door, and he was indeed the Perfect Client. No politics, no fuss, just regular emergencies
that always kept me up through the night. My job was to keep two years ahead of him in technology.
We whipped together presentations for cable marketing, starting when he was an independent consultant, through his vice
presidency at TCI and then ATI. I designed databases and spreadsheets, too, which was great fun. We did a lot of themes like
Mystery, Old West, and The Swimsuit Issue. When he joined The Cable Center as a Sr. VP, we even did videos, complete with
music.
It was the perfect work for me. I commuted to the office in my jammies and learned new programs and techniques all day
long.
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| The Big Client |
This is a doctored picture of Pete that we used in a PowerPoint presentation with an Old West theme.
It was during this period that I became fond of the graphics program, Paint Shop Pro, which I continue to use daily for
fun and games.
It occurs to me that I ran out to the local computer store to get PSP because I could change colors in a cartoon we wanted
to use. Think that version was 4 or 5.
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