Brian Moffet Mind Meanderings

Welcome to my home page, where you can read miscellaneous stuff that most people don't care about. However, sometimes something interesting comes up in a Google™ search and you end up finding this page. Here you can read about various hobbies, where I work, and other information about my life.

Employment:

• Pipeline Engineer for Industrial Light and Magic I maintain and upgrade ObaQ (old article in Linux Journal) and the tools around it. Before you ask, I don't work on specific movies necessarily, I work on software to that helps people work on movies.
• Digital Media Specialist for U.C. Santa Cruz Film and Digital Media Department. Required in-depth knowledge of non-linear editing (using FinalCut Pro Suite), web programming, systems administration, systems programming, and instruction. Worked exclusively with Macintosh computers.
• Valeo Devices – creating an embedded FreeBSD system to handle email, web proxy, DNS and other business critical systems. I was systems architect.
• Predictive Systems – Network performance monitoring and analysis consulting, and computer/network security analysis and consulting. I mostly specialized in digital forensics.
• SCO – Prior to SCO becoming a law-suit factory after being purchased by Caldera, I worked there as a Unix kernel engineer, X-Server (X11R4) driver engineer, embedded systems engineer, and GUI engineer.

Education:

U.C. Santa Cruz, I started in the Physics department, moved to a double major in Physics and Mathematics, and then finally graduated with a B.A. in Mathematics with a minor in Physics.

Flying

I've been a pilot for over 12 years now. I own a 1946 Stinson 108, which was metalized in the 1950s. I also enjoy aerobatics when I can afford it, but that doesn't come along very often. I've competed in Basic (now called Primary) in a Pitts S2b.

Photography

I've been shooting photos for many decades, mostly as an amateur. I've been concentrating on what makes a good photograph, and using some of my other hobbies, like flying, to take some interesting photographs. You can see some of my photography at www.moffetimages.com I have other photographs at Pbase

Motorcycle: 1983 Yamaha Vision

I am the original owner of a 1983 Yamaha Vision, one of Yamaha's worst marketing mistakes. However, it's a great bike, and I'm glad to have owned this one since new (new being purchased in 1986, the dealers couldn't sell them). I did a minor restoration on the Vision. If you have one of these bikes and need to know more about it, look for the “Riders of Vision” web page, and Lucky's page. I kept a lot of photos during the restoration.

My Vision before

My vision during the restoration.

Cats: Zazou and Calypso

We picked Zazou up from a foster home, and Calypso from the local animal shelter.

Calypso was 2. years old when we picked her from the shelter in September, 2005. She has a tendency to get into and onto places she is not allowed, like the range hood in our kitchen.

Zazou was 6 months old when we picked her up from a foster care in September, 2005. She had been found as a stray. Now she's a bit skittish but friendly to those she knows well.

Music

I belonged to a local city band, where I play clarinet. The Santa Cruz City Band was started a dozen years ago by John Thomas, owner of Thomas Musical. They play a variety of pieces and hold concerts about every 4 months or so.

I'm currently working up the courage to learn guitar.