Early Years
I was born in Chicago, the oldest of three boys growing up in the post-WWII years. We were working class, living in places like the CHA Quonset hut project in Gompers Park, over a pizza place on Devon Avenue. and over a store on Milwaukee Avenue (where we would hang out on the roof when it got hot)! I grew to love the many things that make up the soul of Chicago - like hot dogs, pizza, museums, the lake shore, Michigan Avenue, Chicago blues, and the Hancock building.
As a kid, my passions were math, science, and music - and they still are. I would spend the day at the Chicago Public Library devouring science and fiction books. Or listen to music radio, like WVON's R&B, soul, and blues, WGN's Barn Dance, or the WLS top 40. I also loved hands-on stuff, like electronic projects, chemistry sets, and building my own (world's first!) boom box. Later, I got interested in computer science at U of Chicago, while I listened to live blues and jazz, and played guitar professionally.
In the 80s, my ex and I moved to New York and started a family. I played in club date bands (weddings and bar mitzvahs), usually as the "rock guitarist", in places like the Rainbow Room, the Waldorf, and wedding "palaces" like Leonards of Great Neck. I got good at learning songs for the "first dance" on the way to the gig, and "faking" standards. As my "day gig" career progressed and the kids got older, I went back to playing and singing blues and R&B - doing my "born in Chicago" thing!
Technical Career
The PC revolution came on like gangbusters around the time I came to New York City. I started as a programmer, morphed into a PC systems manager, then a technical consultant at Deloitte. But soon the PC revolution turned into the cloud revolution - apps running "in the cloud" on shared hardware. And my background in programming, databases, data integration, and consulting was a great for the Salesforce.com ecosystem. These days I'm into recording and music tech, as well as being an all around electric guitar technician.
For more information, or to chat, you can get in touch with me at gmh58-garyhamiltonme@yahoo.com