Hi!
I am Al Menzies. I've been fiddling around on the internet since 1996, and have finally managed to get round to producing a Web site.
Here are some pics. If you really must, you can click on the thumbnail to get a bigger picture.
Here I am trying to look glamorous ;-)
...and this when I was 21(my hair was already going white)
...and here I am at work, not looking glamorous at all :-)
That's enough pics - Ed
I am, by trade, a Technical Author, although I have been made redundant twice in two years, so I'm not recommending it as a career. In fact I have decided that nearly 30 years is long enough, and I am now out of IT and enjoying a series of gap years.
I haven't always been in user docs. I originally trained as a maker of theatrical costumes, and did that for a couple of years. Then I went for a complete change and became a COBOL programmer (I'm now hoping that none of the programs I wrote back then have survived for the millennium :-) ) After that I became a COBOL trainer for ICL (well, everyone has to work for ICL at some point in their career). Then I became a technical author, working from home, and living in a beautiful cottage just inside Exmoor on the Brendon Hills in Somerset. Then I went off at another tangent and bought a traditional tea shop and restaurant in Painswick (in the Cotswolds) and ran that for two years. I then went back into user docs. No-one could say that I've ever been bored!
In August 1999 I did a tandem freefall parachute jump to raise money for the Scoliosis Association (UK). And in August 2000 (what is it about August?) I dyed my hair purple in the same cause. In 2002, I was privileged to be photographed by Lord Patrick Lichfield for SAUK's Getting it Straight campaign. Click here to see the exhibition
My gap years have involved working in a supermarket in Lesvos for a summer. This turned out to be a complete nightmare for too many reasons to give here. But it didn't put me off Greece, and in the summer of 2005 I started a new career as a holiday rep. I was lucky enough to be posted to Paralio Astros on the east coast of the Peloponnese. I have put up some pics of Paralio Astros and the great places all around that area. I did this for three years, and had a ball, but am now pottering around until I retire, when I will potter around some more.
I have removed all the stuff about Anaxos, Lesvos and my Anaxos website is now permanently closed. After spending holidays there for many years, I made the mistake of trying to live there, and I discovered a side to many of the traders that was both shocking and destructive. As a result, I have no desire to give them any further publicity.
