What do you do when a problem is so strange, so far out of left field, that no one else dares touch it? If you’re me, you dive in headfirst. I’m a problem solver—not by choice, but by fate. The weirdest, most mind-bending challenges seem to find me, and I’ve built a career turning chaos into solutions. From coding on a laptop in a moving van to decoding data a company refused to share, here’s a glimpse into the "weird stuff" I tackle—and how it all happens through word-of-mouth, no advertising required.
The 20-Tape Road Trip
A data recovery gig on the East Coast came with a twist: only 20 SDLT2 backup tapes (200GB each) could leave the facility at a time, and they couldn’t travel more than 15 miles. Oh, and the client had no clue how the backups were made. After analyzing a single test tape in Texas, we cracked the method—network backups of an Active Directory domain. To restore them, we’d need to recreate the network and AD structure.
Here’s where it gets weird: I wrote the automation software on a laptop in the passenger seat of a rental van packed with computers and robotic tape changers, coding from Dallas to Boston. It worked flawlessly on arrival. Problem solved, no hitch.
Bandwidth Chaos, Tamed
A Texas wireless ISP was drowning. Customers devoured bandwidth, and managing it was a nightmare—five-minute manual configs per device, handled by just two employees. Disconnects and reconnects took days, frustrating everyone.
After digging into their network gear, I built a system linking the client and accounting databases. Custom Lua scripts let devices self-provision bandwidth based on account status or service changes. Now, any employee could tweak settings, and updates hit within minutes. Frustration? Eliminated.
COBOL to the Rescue
A California call center needed daily phone switch reports, but their IT team couldn’t keep up. The data was overwhelming, leaving managers with 48-hour-old reports compiled by two staffers pulled off phones. I found an onsite system with a surprising hero: COBOL, the 1959 language from Grace Hopper.
I wrote a COBOL app to process switch data every 15 minutes, delivering real-time reports. The result? Proactive insights, two employees back on phones, and a 5,000% annual ROI from a one-time 80-hour fix.
Silent Alarm Fix
A Dallas residential security firm flubbed big-time: thousands of installed alarm systems had a critical flaw. They braced for a costly truck-roll marathon until I reviewed their docs and spotted a remote programming feature. I built an automated tool to fetch configs, tweak them, and push updates—all in about a minute per system.
Thousands of fixes later, techs visited only a handful of sites. Customers got a confidence boost, not a mea culpa. Victory, snatched from defeat.
Decoding the Unreadable
A training company rolled out online CBT to hundreds of employees, expecting a data goldmine. Instead, they got gibberish—data in a format they couldn’t crack, locked away by a vendor who wouldn’t help. Years ago, I’d tangled with this vendor, decoding their SCORM/suspend_data structure and open-sourcing it (see Brain Games). That work drew this client to me.
This time, they needed quiz results. I cracked enough of the algorithm to extract them, delivering software they now own. Frustration turned to freedom.
Why the Weird Stuff Matters
These projects aren’t just oddities—they’re proof that unconventional problems demand unconventional solutions. I don’t seek them out; they find me through whispers: “I know a guy.” No ads, just results. So, if you’ve got a weird one, now you know a guy too.
