Ben Blish:
CLASS OF 1974
Delaware Valley High SchoolClass of 1974
Milford, PA
Port Jervis High SchoolClass of 1978
Port jervis, NY
East Stroudsburg High SchoolClass of 1978
East stroudsburg, PA
Delaware Valley High SchoolClass of 1975
Milford, PA
Dryden High SchoolClass of 1974
Dryden, NY
Ben's Story
Life
I spent a couple of decades working in the electronics and computer industries, first as a tech, later as an engineer. I've designed items that range from widgets for musicians to complete arcade game systems to signal processing engines. I've written numerous columns for electronics and computer magazines. I've won awards for my electronic and software designs. I've held both the highest class FCC license, and an extra-class amateur radio license, been a member of the IEEE and on the board of the Orion Blue Audio Book.
In 1989, I began to lean towards software and away from hardware design. My last commercial hardware design was completed in 1992. By 1990, I had started my own small company creating image manipulation software, and it became a thriving concern with several high-end products. You've almost certainly seen our special effects many times at the movies, especially if you've seen "morphing." I own some other businesses as well. At this point I'm retired, although I still write software primarily for my own amusement.
I studied martial arts for years, and have taught them since the 1990's. I hold black belts in a Japanese wrestling/throwing art, a Chinese joint locking art, a circular variety of Korean kara te, and hold a master's ranking (5th dan) in a Korean hard-style art similar in many ways to Okinawan and Japanese karate. I am the author of a 600-page volume on martial arts training, and also a volume on learning to read han gul (Korean characters.)
On a more personal level, I still play music, I have a well-equipped 32-track digital recording studio and now play drums as well as guitar and bass. I'm most interested in blues, rock, and hard rock, as far as playing goes. I like listening to almost anything, the notable exceptions being rap and country. I still adore cats. We have quite a few happy, loony felines. I enjoy studying Chinese characters, they appeal to me on a number of levels. I play chess with friends a lot. I read a great deal, and enjoy many other pursuits, such as rock collecting, photography, video games, amateur (ham) radio, cars, motorcycles, movies... and I write quite a bit, though mostly non-fiction of one type or another.
In the summer of 2006, we (my lady and I) moved into an old c...Expand for more
hurch building of about 5000 square feet on two lots. This meant building an interior into it; it was essentially an empty box to begin with. We've been working in and on it ever since. It isn't done by any means (I'm beginning to think it will never be done... good grief) but it definitely has become a comfortable home. I've done most of the carpentry, electrical and planning myself, while my sweetheart, Deb, has done the finish work; it has been very rewarding for both of us. It's more than a little eclectic, too. Perhaps the freedom to design anything we wanted went a bit to our heads.
Finally, I would very much like to read about what my classmates have been doing with themselves - so... how about some of you write profiles, too?
School
Ah, school. If only there had been physics, electronics, logic, critical thinking, martial arts... but no. Well, all I can say is I don't really regret all those days I was stoned. I managed to get all the druggie adventures out of my system before I had to face life's real pressures, and for that, I am grateful.
My biggest crush was someone else's girl the whole time I knew her, and though she was sweet as could be to me, I never so much as raised the subject, because her boyfriend was also a good friend of mine. Regrets? Not really. My life worked out just fine, and I remember her most fondly as is -- and my friend remained my friend. I don't think she ever knew.
Which high school teacher inspired me the most? Probably Eugene McLaughlin, my English teacher, who was a fine, kind man less interested in doing things the "DV way" and more interested in seeing what performance he could drag out of my lazy butt.
As my friends will recall, I eventually quit high school -- it really wasn't working out for me. I got my GED within a couple of months after leaving, picked up some technical schooling, audited a few college courses, then went to work doing electronics repair and consulting. The rest, as they say, is history.
Regrets? Yes, one big one: I definitely should have paid more attention in math. Turns out that my career path required me to do a lot of catching up, sometimes in quite a hurry. So as it turned out, I only thought I was getting out of math. Nope -- not even close. Whoops. :-)
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