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I've been having a conversation with some friends about securing our borders. Most of them believe we need to lock things down and stop illegal immigration. I agree with them on the illegal immigration part, though I know we can never completely stop it, but the locking down the border part I've had trouble with. This story might explain to you why I feel this way.
Living as far away from our nothern and southern border as I do it's easy to forget how life is for people living along the borders and dream of an inpenetrable wall being built there. However, living on the border it's easy to build relationships on both sides, both personal and business relationships. While I understand the importance of keeping undesirables (terrorists) from crossing borders into our country I don't believe we need to make life difficult for people who live on the borders.
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About Larry D. Burton
I'm a 55 year old controls engineer who just likes tinkering with stuff.
Finished high school at a local institute of learning. Decided it wasn't a good time to be a healthy, physically fit 18 year old with no college experience. Entered college and started working toward a degree in animal husbandry.
1975-1976
Discoverd that I was not going to be a very good husband of animals so I left school to figure out what I might be good at. A local beverage company took pity on me and paid me to go from place to place making sure their on tap beverages were maintaining their high quality.
1976-1979
Got out of quality control and into vending. Learned about control systems and refrigeration also learned that vending machines are heavy and vending doesn't pay all that well.
In 1977 I found myself married
1979-1981
Dedicated myself to installing and maintaining commercial refrigeration equipment. Found myself on the roof of a local grocery store one night in the middle of an ice storm replacing a compressor and figured it was time to get back into school.
1981-1986
Got my but back into school at night and changed jobs to keep the mechanical and electrical systems of a local coporate hospital in working order. The job expanded to unstopping drains and burning lab samples and amputated body parts.
1986-now
Finished school and took on a job designing, installing and maintaining industrial control systems. Along the way I picked up a bunch of computer skills that became very useful connecting various industrial controllers to one another and moving the data into coporate databases. I now operate Dallas Bay Technologies, a one man shop specializing in technology solutions for industrial problems.