Kerry Davids:  

I left NY in 1978 and moved quite a bit. After 12 years with my own consulting firm and successfully day trading the stock market I "retired" Dec. 1998. Moved to Miami, FL to day trade the stock market full-time, but my luck changed (the stock market is a lot like VEGAS) and after 9 months I went back to consulting. I had to change the name from "The Davids Group, Inc." to "Davids Negron International, Inc." (added my Mother's maiden name) because a company in Florida already filed with a name similar to mine. Taught myself how to speak, read and write in Spanish (speaking Spanish is pretty much essential here) over the past four years. What's cool is that everyone asks if I am from Brazil because I speak with an accent of someone who first learned Portuguese and then Spanish (sure beats "You talk like a gringo!"). I still play a lot of instruments (6 and 12 string guitars, 4 and 5 string bass guitars, keyboards and have a complete latin percussion set) but instead of just playing progressive and classic rock (Yes, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Jethro Tull, etc., I expanded into different types of Latin music. I sing and play boleros from Los Panchos and old Cuban songs by Trio Matamoros, rock in Spanish by Mana, Luis Fonsi, Coti, Juanes and Polo Montanez and just for grins I throw in some bachata, merengue and salsa on bass guitar. I added a digital recording studio to my house and have a lot of fun with that (if I could just land a recording contract). I also DJ'ed and performed for some private parties (the parties were fun so it was almost like not working, except for lugging around the sound system). The economy took its toll on a lot of people and I have had to "adapt to survive." After working with UNIX, C and Shell for 30 years, in September 2009 I had to take Microsoft courses to get certified in C# and ASP.NET, SQL Server 2005 and SharePoint 2007. After getting an advanced certification in January 2010, I started teaching those course that February and became a Microsoft Certified Trainer in April. When I am not teaching I have to study to prepare for more certifications. In January 2011 I add more certifications for MCITP SQL Server 2008 and MCPD .NET Framework 4 Web Developer. After a couple of years of struggling, 2011 was been a turnaround year. From March until August I worked for a company that manufactured and configured software for intelligence operations communications systems (ie, Afghanistan, Iraq, and other places around the world). It was interesting work and paid well, but the old joke that "military intelligence is an oxymoron" is not a joke. ;-) Glad to no longer be part of that operation. In October I joined an IBM Global Services partner as Senior Informix Database Consultant and worked on some key projects at the Hilton Worldwide Operations Center in Memphis, TN. Memphis is a really nice place, but the airport is expensive to travel to and from. In the meantime, the IBM Global Services team got carte blanche at the Hilton Memphis (east side of town) and life could not be better. In August 2012 I started with a new IBM group at Hilton in Memphis at Hilton. Not quite as much travel, but I made Gold with Delta in June and Diamond with Hilton with my last visit. Life was still really good. 2012 was my best year in a log time. On November 13, 2012 I had LASEK PRK laser surgery on my eyes and can see pretty much 20/20 without glasses. For those of you that remember my glasses from high school, that's a relief. In Jan 2 2013 I moved to another project with IBM Global Services at at Wise Alloys in Muscle Shoals, AL. They are an aluminum recycling company that takes in scrap aluminum and manufactures huge aluminum coils that are then sold to large beer and soda companies to make cans and other products. While it meant that I had to catch a flight from Miami at 10:15 AM on New Year's Day which cut short my New Year's celebration, the project took me to a new career level. I was on a team that interfaced an Informix leg...Expand for more