The first two computers in the house, that I remember anyway, were an Atari 2600 and a Coleco Adam. Combat, Adventure, Asteroids, calling into local BBS systems, BASIC and Logo, papers for school, and games (Ultima IV!) are what I remember from the early years.

Computers have been part of my life since I was young, but probably the single thing I spent the most time doing was playing the clarinet. It eventually took me to the Eastman School of Music (Peter Hadcock), Indiana University at Bloomington (Eli Eban), North Carolina School for the Arts (Robert Listokin), and the University of Arizona (Jerry Kirkbride). While in school I had the company of remarkable friends, and some of my fondest memories are of our work together preparing for the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and the Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition.

The revival of my interest in computers and programming dates to the early 2000s, when I was a Teaching Assistant during my Doctor of Musical Arts studies at the University of Arizona. I worked on several classes that had simple online components (mostly HTML), had to find ways to process grades for large classes (Excel/VBA), and in several Electronic Music courses learned Max/MSP. Max/MSP wasn’t a true deep dive into programming, but working to create interactive systems that combined performance, sound, hardware, and computers was an inspiring experience.

Music didn’t work out as a career for me. I never finished my doctorate. In the early 2000s I started climbing, canyoneering, and working at the Summit Hut. The Summit Hut was an amazing locally owned outdoor specialty retail business in Tucson, AZ - a core part of the local outdoor scene. The Summit Hut started in the 1960s and lasted until 2025. Since the 1980s the Summit Hut had developed in-house software for inventory management, reporting, POS, accounts payable, and all aspects of business operations. I started on the sales floor and then moved to a Buyer’s Assistant position. As a Buyer’s Assistant I did my first programming for the Summit Hut, developing Excel VBA to help us do restock and stock balances. Over time I became a Buyer - creating assortments, forecasting demand and managing inventory - and extended my skills by learning C# and SQL.

I designed and developed tools for reporting, ordering, PO creation, inventory search, cycle counts, vendor stock imports, bulk item creation and updates, event tracking and took on additional IT responsibilities. During my time at the Summit Hut the Buying Team worked constantly to improve our professional and technical excellence and meet demanding financial goals. We were also core users of the gear we purchased, in some years the Buying Team were collectively on trail for 1000s of miles in locations all across the American West.

These days I'm continuing to hone my inventory skills by working for Thermo Fisher Scientific's Unity Lab Services managing inventory at Roche Tissue Diagnostics and working on a Health Information Technology AAS at Pima Community College.

You can get in touch with me at [email protected], find some photography at Pointless Waymarks, visit the remnants of my one-day-to-be-rebuilt older site Hike Lemmon, and see some of the software this site was built with here.

Thanks for visiting!
Charles