Volunteer of the Month for November 2005
Randy Esdon
by Hu Filleul
his is Canada’s “Year of the Veteran” and Randy is probably the youngest veteran in our club, having spent two tours on a Navy frigate serving in the Arabian Gulf; first, from August to December, 2003 on HMCS Calgary, and then, from April to October of this year on HMCS Winnipeg. His “Letters from the Gulf” series of 26 articles while he was away provided us with good insight into the daily life on a warship far from home as well as a great travelogue, including colour photos, of all the interesting places he visited while en route. These articles are a great read and are archived on our website.
In addition to his “travel” series, Randy has written twenty-three other articles for the newsletter on all manner of subjects. These too are available on our website. I found his review of Microsoft AntiSpyware written in March 2005 most useful and concur with his observation “I have found that once I clean my computer of spyware using Microsoft’s AntiSpyware, I now rarely get any indications of spyware being reported by Spybot-S&D, or Ad-Aware.” In fact, I now only rarely check with Ad-Aware. Randy has been writing articles for the newsletter since 2001. They are all current and worth reading.
Randy was selected as Volunteer of the Month in September of 2000 by Clive Amos and in July of 2003 by Clark Mohr (in an article written by Charlene Brown).
Clive wrote: “In ‘89 Randy joined the Canadian Armed Forces where he received training as a Naval Electronics Technician with a specialty in fire control. For the rest of us, that means a radar technician with a specialty in controlling the aim of weaponry using radar. Randy is regularly at sea tending to his duties but when he is ashore, you can often find him helping at the clubhouse.
“Joining BB&C in 1993, Randy ‘hung out’ in the conferences on the BBS where he shared his interest in PC’s with other enthusiasts. In the days before the World Wide Web and the kind of email we now take for granted, using a BBS was one of the few ways open to the public to quickly and inexpensively communicate digitally with people. Not only locally but, using echo-mail, around the world too. He has been helping our Librarian catalogue books on an as needed basis for about six years. He built a number of computer systems out of spare parts to sell at the auction that was held when the BB&C clubhouse was being moved to [our Oak Street clubhouse]. Prior to the move, Randy contributed a major effort to clean the new clubhouse. Afterwards, he planned the setup and then networked the Lab systems. Since then, Randy has been our “hardware guy” replacing components as they wear out and generally maintaining the Training Lab systems that are vital to the courses taught at BB&C.”
Edited excerpts from Charlene’s Article: “When he returns from his current tour in the Middle East, he will be assigned to the Naval Officers Training Centre Bridge Simulator at Work Point. There he will be responsible for maintenance of all the computerized hardware—projectors, radar simulator, and communication electronics—associated with this complex training facility.”
Paralleling his naval career, Randy was developing his home computer expertise, having acquired his first computer, a 286, while his ship was in Hong Kong in 1985. Since then, he has upgraded and hybridized his equipment regularly, judiciously “staying just behind the bleeding edge” of the rapidly evolving technology.
It is fortunate that we are able to have and to hold a volunteer member of our club like Randy. Not only is he a credit to the Canadian Navy, and to Canada’s veterans; he is a credit to BB&C.
