Day 1

I Finally got around to setting this up, so I can focus my efforts. Ive been flailing around posting on various forums and want to start putting my thoughts down for future reference.

Might as well post about me, if I write in 3rd person it makes me sound more important - like its an autobiography.

Phil was born in Wales in 1977. Phil's father was employed by Her Majesty's Royal Air Force, so there was some moving around until about 1985 ish. Phil's family settled in the town of King's Lynn on the East coast of England. Phil finished high school at what is now known as "The Park" high school. At the time it was simply known as "Gaywood", yes I think we can agree the name change was a positive step for them. Incidentally Phil designed the schools logo for them as part of an art competition sometime around 1991. Phil then went to Brunel University, in Uxbridge to Study Mechanical Engineering. For the geographically challenged - Uxbridge is in West London, a few miles north of Heathrow airport.

After graduating from Brunel in 1998, Phil spent a few months un-employed, fiddling with an old 1978 LWB Landrover. Luckily he managed to find employment with Perkins Engines - ending that rather brief but financially "sub optimal" phase of his life.

His new job relocated him to Shrewsbury England, where Phil learned the finer points of designing Diesel engines. Perkins it turned out was a wholly owned subsiduary of Caterpillar Inc, and it became apparent to Phil that it might be wise to work for the parent company and not the newly aquired subsidiary. The particular Perkins business that Phil had joined had some products in common with Caterpillar and this tranistion to the parent company later proved to be something of a darn good idea.

Phil moved to the United States in 2000, to work for Caterpillar in Lafayette IN. More diesel engine design work followed, while Phil worked on convincing the beautiful Tara Sellers that she need look no further for a suitor. His devious plan succeeded and Tara Married Phil on June 8th 2002 to become Tara Ball. The more astute readers will notice that if mumbled quickly her name now sounds like "terrible". That gives you some idea about who got the better end of the deal.

Further relocation occured in 2004 when Phil and Tara moved to Georgia so Phil could continue his interesting career in diesel engine design, and so they could be closer to Taras family.

Then in December 2006, the clocks stopped, the pool balls suddenly rolled to a stop on the table and our first child was born, changing everything and making life infinitley richer. Tara and Phil were thus joined by Sophia in their walk through life.

Phil is still working for Caterpillar Inc, still designs diesel engines (must be something about it that he likes!) and they are all still living happily in Georgia.

Now might be a good time to remind readers that the opinions expressed here are not the opinions of Caterpillar Inc or its subsidiarys. But golly gosh Caterpillar is a great company with a bright future, so investors might want to go to http://www.cat.com/ for closer look.

I think thats enough trumpet blowing for one post.