Mike Barkman
Rotorua, NZ
Mike and Joan Barkman live in Rotorua on the North Island of New Zealand.
This is a second marriage for Mike and Joan, having both lost their partners
years ago. Mike is a long-retired pharmacist, now 67, who bought his first
computer in 1980 (remember the Commodore Pet?) and has been a closet techie ever
since. He has two children, Sue and Ross (who have opted out of having kids and
are in consequence having most successful careers in computing). Joan has one
daughter, Joanna, and three lively grandchildren.
All of the above creep in to the Kronikles from time to time in between tech
doings. Joanna's husband Don is a graphics and web designer [http://www.cox.co.nz]
in Rotorua, and Mike does all the IT support, photography, scanning, colour
printing, CD burning -- and gets to do a little *real work* on web pages and
drawing stuff when the pressure is on.
Joan is 61 (Mike fancies younger women) and is able to indulge her passion for
gardening; the results can be seen on the web site. Mike has been a photographer
for 50 years, and still keeps his hand in taking pictures for Camera Club
competitions. He is now experimenting with Linux to try and understand what the
gurus are writing about.