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I figure I’d start here. At the beginning.
My first photo!
Beginning is a relative term.
My beginning starts in 1966. Oddly, I don’t recall it very well. My first recollections start around 1970. I know this because of the car we had at the time - a pink 1961 Ford Falcon just like this one:
Ford Falcon (XK), 1961, Pink
My clearest recollection of that car was going to see my dying grandmother with dad and mum in the front, and four kids in the back, and the car having a really hard time going up some hill in Ryde. I don’t think we had to get out of the car to get up the hill but there were times that we had to - the hills in Sydney, Australia, can be prety steep for an old two-speed automatic Falcon.
We replaced that car in 1971 with a white, three speed, 4.9L V8, 1971 Ford Fairmont, license place CEI 598, identical to the one below. This car was the first love of my life - and I remember the day dad brought it home. I also remember the day he sold it - and I never forgave him for that. It was old and beaten up by then, but it was still my car - what gave him the right to sell it?! The fact that I didn’t even have my driver’s license when he did sell is of no importance.
Ford Falcon (XY), 1971, White
The last of the cars that heavily picture in my early life was a 1977 Ford Cortina (seeing a trend in manufacturer here?) station wagon. What a letdown after the Ford Fairmont. With a crappy 2.0L four cylinder, and about as reliable as a typical British car of its heritage, this car ended up being the first car I got to drive legally. And unlike the one pictured, ours was the colour of dirt. Like, just a muddy ugly brown. My guess? It was the last one left on the lot when dad wanted to buy a new car.
Ford Cortina (TC Mk III), 1977, Yellow
I didn’t mean to get into car territory to discuss my beginnings - just that the memories were very specific and clearly give a timeline for when “my world” begins. And, to be fair, representative of my long held interest in cars. My imagined future was as a race car driver.
Like most teenagers, when I started to drive, I drove like it too. I had my share of incidents, including driving into a cliff to avoid an oncoming tractor(!); destroying the wheel rims on a friend’s car after missing a curve at speed; driving clear through a stop sign because the brakes on the car failed (didn’t hit anything though); and various other incidents that I’d prefer not to be public. But motor racing is an expensive sport. Without parental support at a young age, it was never going to happen and, so, was the path not taken.
My dad started an electronic parts importation business, Ampec Electronics, in the early ’70s. With the release of the Apple II and later the IBM PC, it was pretty clear that computing was going to be a better business than electronic parts, particularly when companies like Tandy Electronics and Dick Smith Electronics were eating up the electronics market. So the clone business it was! We initially started with an Apple II clone called the Medfly (Mediterannean fruit flies attack apples!) but didn’t stay with Apple II clones for long. After Columbia Data Products introduced the first IBM PC clone in 1982, clone PCs rapidly became a thing. More often than not, the clones were better than the IBM originals, and typically cheaper.
The Medfly Apple II clone (circa early 1980s) 
The Medfly logo
Although Ampec did sell some clones, the business still preferred “parts”, like Novell network cards. And that’s how I got my start. With the introduction of the NE1000, Ampec became an early Novell distributor in Australia. As my dad didn’t really have time to understand how they worked, he gave me the job. He also told me I should learn how to program dBASE II - essentially so that I could program for him without him having to pay me! dBASE II was a great introduction to databases and programming, but it also taught me a lot of bad habits I had to unlearn when I decided to get formal education). Much to my father’s chagrin, I used those early development years doing contract programming instead of working for him for free. But that software development and business experience did lead to my current career. It also helped that no-one else in my family had any interest - being the youngest means that if you don’t want your life stomped on all the time, make sure you get out of the way.
In 1990, the opportunity to move to Canada presented itself. Having lived in Japan as an exchange student in 1980, I’d already enjoyed time away from my oppresive home. I knew that this was the opportunity that I needed to leave Australia. So leave I did, and I never looked back. I’ve had several return visits over the years - but it’s always with joy that I catch that departing flight.