WapTug all started as a college student club project in 2009 to build a cluster of web servers and get some hands on experience building computer networks and people networks. I was going back to college to finish up my goal of getting a degree in something computer related. I was taking courses at Cascadia Community College in Bothell, WA. I was studying Web Application Programming. So that was the WAP in WapTug. The TUG was Technology Users Group. I had started trying to get my college education when I graduated from High School with the plan of attending DeVry University and studying Electronic Engineering. I had everything set to go to Phoenix, AZ and live on campus to get my 4 year degree with a BS in Electronic Engineering. I was very excited in learning how to design computers. I got sidetracked because I got a fantastic job offer from my cousin William to work for his company as a Manager of Information Systems for his real estate management company Fountain Grove Executive Suites in Santa Rosa, CA. That sounded great I thought to myself…. why attend college when I can just start working in a cool job I was going to college to get. I still wanted to learn about Electronics so I took a correspondence course in Electronic Engineering. All was working well…. I had my own room in a 5 BR house I was renting. Living on my own for the first time and loving earning more money then I had ever before. ( I look back and laugh… I was making $300/week in 1988) I was close to all the fun in Silicone Valley and San Francisco. I was having a blast for 6 months. My most memorable event was attending the film debut of the Pixar video with the Lamp Mascot at a film festival. Then my cousin went out of business and I was laid off. Found myself out of work, with no degree in the very expensive area and basically homeless after I was not able to pay my rent. So I enlisted in the Air Force and decided to move in with my Aunt Barbie and my Uncle William in Santa Rosa while I waited for my Tour in the Air Force to begin. After completing basic training in TX and my Services Specialist Training school in CO. I was stationed in Waikiki, HI. After being disillusioned with Military Life and being very much home sick… I exited the Air Force and returned home to go to college at Big Bend Community College in Moses Lake, WA. I took general classes working toward my A.A. degree with computer and business electives while at the same time starting my computer services and tutoring business. Fast forward to 2005 … After loosing my school funding to attend Big Bend and failing to achieve a livable income in technology with my own business I decided I needed a change of latitude so I moved to Seattle and set my goals on getting a job at a tech company. Fast forward to 2009 and after getting laid off from a call center job supporting Verizon Wireless and AT & T as a data support tech I got back into school at Cascadia Community college.
We had some donated rack servers that we revived and installed linux on. Then we installed apache and webmin to manage them. We hosted some student web sites on them. We had the vision of getting an ongoing server room on campus supported by student activity fees for each student at the college to have a long lasting web space to host their web portfolio and resume for a few years after they graduated until they landed a job at which time they could retire the site in a hall of fame to inspire future students.
Well our project had lofty goals and needed lots of administrative permissions to become real. More on that later…
The other activities we did was to host a computer career speakers series where our club would open up the meeting and we would give our server room project progress up date to the group of students who attended our club event. WapTug would provide Pizza and Soda and then our guest speaker would talk about some aspect of working in the technology sector and do a Q and A session. You can see the videos we did at https://youtube.com/WapTugDotOrg Then we would have a networking session where the students could get a connection with the speaker and share their resumes with them. We also made a quest to have a booth at LinuxFest Northwest each year. That was a fun experience. We took one of the rack servers with us to set up and show case our project.
This club lasted for years after I graduated in 2012. The concept of running a bank of servers for student use was duplicated by a similar group of students at Bellingham Community College and I am sure other colleges caught the idea to try it too.
Stay tuned for how it rolled out into much more then that limited vision…
