About Me

doctor-who I’m an amateur astronomer, birder, and photographer who writes software for a living. I spend as much time as possible observing birds or the sky in Little Rock and the rest of Arkansas. My plan is to figure out how to make a living out of my hobbies and get paid for doing what I would do for free. If you care to contact me, you can email me at JamesDixonLR at gmail dot com.

If you need help with a bird related project, please contact me. You can see my birding resume here.

You are correct, this is not me. It is the Doctor however, the resemblance is uncanny.

Astronomy

Click here to see my astronomy related posts.

Astronomy was my first passion. At 10, I got my first telescope – a 60mm department store refractor that promised 600x power. At 16, I discovered my local astronomy group which was then called the Midsouth Astronomical Research Society and bought my next telescope, an 80mm f/15 refractor on a German equatorial mount. I later rejoined the group, now called the Central Arkansas Astronomical Society, and at this writing have almost 25 years cumulative in the organization.

At this time, my arsenal includes: Molly, 16 awesome inches of kick-ass light gathering capacity built by me in 2017 and Elf, an 11 inch SCT which I use for astrophotography or any time I want a computerized workhorse capable of getting it done. I do most of my observing at the River Ridge Observatory, home of the aforementioned Central Arkansas Astronomical Society.

Birding

Click here to see my birding related posts.

Birding was my second passion. I started in the middle 80s and found that unlike astronomy clear skies were not required and it not only could be done in the day time but was best at that time. I am a long time member of the Audubon Society of Central Arkansas.

If you have a special project and need someone to do a bird survey, let me know. As of this date, I have completed three for clients in Arkansas and Mississippi. Follow this link to my birding resume and I can provide references as needed.

Below are links to other pages related to birding locations:

Birding Lake Maumelle

Birding Hotspots of Central Arkansas

Good Public Access Places for Shorebirds

General Photography

Click here to see my photography related posts.

Besides birding and astronomy, I reserve the right to be interested in anything I want. I’m always looking for distinctive patterns that would make a good picture. Like Isaac Asimov, I’m not very good so I take a lot.

Software

I am a software engineer/architect for a living. My career started a long time ago at the Arkansas Gazette newspaper. I was introduced to the then new fangled IBM System/38 which introduced new technologies that are still around today. I continued on with its successor under its many names – AS/400, iSeries, and now IBM i. I wrote applications first in RPG III and now ILE RPG and RPG/free.

Starting about 10 years ago, I segued into Java development as well. It was slow, not the least because they couldn’t spare me to work on non-RPG applications but now I spend 80% of my time writing and maintaining Java applications using Spring and Hibernate moving RPG applications to Java. Also Javascript, of course, with help from jQuery, jqxWidgets, and DHTMLX. I also create web sites with WordPress as you might have guessed if you are reading this.

How can I help you?