St. Patrick’s Day is a significant day in my life.

On March 17th 1975 I was fired from my job at a savings and loan. I worked at a variety of odd jobs for the next year, including working at a Summer Stock theater. I worked painting houses and mixed mortar for a mason. I worked the 12 midnight to 6AM shift as a cashier at a diner. Every weekend Erica and I loaded up the trunk of the old Nova with junk from auctions and rented a table at a flea market. The local auctions would have an “everything in the box” sale to warm up the audience. They were just junk, but you could sell 20 things from a box that cost a couple of bucks for about $20 if you priced them separately. We also bought large bulk packaged disposable diapers and repackaged them. We would make about $20 a case. In the slow periods, I would read Tarot cards. There wasn’t a week that went by where I didn’t make more money just scrambling than I did when I was working regularly. This was the best time of my life.

On March 17th 1976 I was hired at Orange and Rockland Utilities. I learned to program computers on their nickel and I started making money consulting on the side.

On March 17th 1983, I quite O&R and went to work for Western Union, where I really learned to program.

On March 17th 1984 I left Western Union to work for St. Regis Paper Company as a member of their Computer support group teaching executives how to use spreadsheets.

On March 17th 1986 I started at Lockheed as the manager of their microcomputer group. I wrote a lot of programs including the first versions of the EZ-Pass system used on many highways.

On March 17th 2000, I left Lockheed to work for IBM as a high paid consultant.

On March 17th 2002, after being caught in a major layoff at IBM, I took a job for a year working Java code on Wall Street, NY. It was a nice job where I took the water shuttle around Manhattan to the foot of Wall Street every day. On the minus side, I had to work near Ground Zero, where so many people died.

On March 17th 2003, I was hired by The County of Westchester as a low paid consultant, but I didn’t start until April 1. It was a three month gig and I’ve been here for just about five years. It is time to change.

I am waiting to see what happens today. I have a slight chance at being hired by a network news website to write a PC column. I applied last week, but I have a feeling that there may be quite a few other applicants. It is probably too soon, but I hope that I might hear today, just because the Mojo is so powerful on St. Patty’s day.