In the late seventies I landed the biggest IBM systems consulting project of my career with Interocean Steamship of San Francisco. These guys were the leading container management company on the West Coast and they wanted a state of the art computer system. I gave my hand-typed presentation to a room full of suits, wearing a tee-shirt and ragged jeans, and got the contract. A year later they had their system and loved it, and I was rocking and rolling on the IBM gravy train.

Now I sit hunkered down in the cold and dark, still writing code...