About Mark Johnson

I live in the forest of rural Douglas County, Colorado, near the towns of Parker and Castle Rock.

After graduating from Carlsbad High School (NM) in 1977 I served 4 years in the U.S. Coast Guard, then managed to drop out of college and waste my GI bill and a lot of friendships and relationships due to alcoholism. Looking back, I'm not sure how I managed it while drinking but then went back to college and got a degree in electronic engineering. I worked designing and prototyping electronic circuits for a few years. The electronics work evolved back into computer work again during the early days of personal PCs, and I have been working in the IT field ever since. Over the years I've built a lot of computers, worked as a network engineer, database administrator, security administrator, and a number of other IT roles for several large companies (Microsoft, IBM, Dr Pepper/7up, etc.). For the past several years I have concentrated on software design and development, and usually work out of my house for clients in the Denver Tech Center area.

Alcoholism was my constant companion and best friend during most of the first 20 years of my adult life; unfortunately it controlled more of that time than I did. I did manage to hold on to jobs and even advance my career while drinking, but it was quite devastating on my personal life. I now think of my adult life as being two completely different lives; the first 20 years are difficult for me to think back on but happily the past 20+ years have been alcohol free and full of healing. One day at a time; that is all I can ask for. The first thing I did after becoming sober was enroll back in college, and completed a second degree at age 42. My career was already well established at that point so the degree didn't really help there, but it helped me tremendously in self-confidence (which alcohol did a great job of destroying).

I love to spend time in the great outdoors, and photography is a way I sometimes capture small pieces of those experiences. I hope you enjoy the pictures and the occasional stories I'll add to go along with them. I love astronomy also and spend a lot of time in the dark with telescopes, but I probably won't start doing astrophotography until I retire so don't expect pictures from that hobby for now.

I can be contacted via email at Mark.Johnson at WarpSpeedBrain dot com

... Mark Johnson