My name is Jim Neiers and as I remind my wife, I'm still "sixtyish". I won't be able to do that next year. I am educated as an engineer and experienced is project management on aerospace system, along with a variety of other professional activities over the years. Besides spending a full career for a major 500 industrial company doing business with NASA and Department of Defense, I was a founder and Vice President and Treasurer of a small business Government contractor, worked for an electric utility and worked for a pipeline company.

Besides the regular jobs, I've done numerous interesting things either as part time, short duration, or incidental to other activities such as drive truck, operate heavy equipment, run construction crews, do major auto body repair, build buildings, and do concrete work, electrical work, painting, and just about any related thing that might need doing. Although most of my adult life has been in the south, I was born and grew up in Iowa and worked on farms during the summer and whenever I was not in school. When young, I learned many trades from my father, including such not too common things as sign painting and locksmithing. I've rebuilt engines and performed all sorts of mechanic work.

These many decades of experience are not the things tallied as Writing activities, but surprisingly, any associated writing always came easy. While most of the engineering students sweated the senior writing exam as a major impediment to graduation, I took it once with ease. Throughout my career, report writing fell to me as the one best suited to produce a readable and informative document. I have produced many project documents and technical reports in conjunction with Government contracts and professional organization activities. None of these ever produced any direct compensation, so I am not a professional writer. However, at my stage of life, I am ready to do some paid for writing.

My wife might say I am a retired engineer, but I do not consider myself retired just yet. I am busy home schooling our grandson who is in high school. I did have a significant experience about five years ago when I had a major heart attack. I am an example of the successes of modern medicine, enjoying every day with very few limitations, thanks to a left ventricle assist device, termed an LVAD. This is an electrically driven turbine installed inside me in line with my heart that keeps my blood circulating.

So where am I coming from? This snapshot of my life should give some hint that there will be a plethora of experience from which to draw for whatever topic I choose to address. My interests are varied and broad. I like to read and usually am in the middle of many books on varied subjects at the same time I especially enjoy history, cosmology, and emerging technologies. I do not trust computers, but have ( or perhaps because) decades of experience with them. My first encounter was with the improved version that had seven level rather than five level paper tape input output. I worked on upgrading the big computer to four banks of 4K core memory, replacing the 4K cathode ray tube memory of the old machine. At that time, we were just getting a new software program that was expected to revolutionize programming. It was called Symbolic Assembly Routing, that enabled a programmer to identify an address with a three character symbol and avoid having to count the address increments to identify where the content was stored.

Now after decades of writing confined to strictly technical subjects, my goals are to produce some interesting articles for a broader audience. As I've always maintained, anything worth doing is worth doing poorly, so I'm ready to write. I do not recognize any constraint on topic choice. It will depend on what I perceive as matching some part of y background.

Politics, News & Issues > Political & Economic Theory Can a boycott by the American public affect gas prices?

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Without government meddling, the free market demand will affect gas prices. A boycott that results in less demand will result in lower prices, at least for a short while. Then it will be less profitable to explore for and develop new sources of petroleum or alternative energy forms and the price will rise. A "boycott" in terms of reduced consumption that could be incrementally implemented through more careful trip planning and better evaluation of the trip necessity will have a significant impact on gas price.

The price of gas is a major focal point for current political discussion. ...

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