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Lohsl — it rhymes with social.

After World War I my grandfather moved from Bavaria to Altoona, PA because, well, he and my ancestors were starving to death in post war Germany. Being illiterate, his trip through Ellis Island left the name Lobel forever changed to Lohsl.

As a youth, I loved taking things apart and putting things together. I think I liked making the connection and determining how things worked and what they could do — and I still do.

Rather than following a technical education path as an engineer or architect, I opted for a degree in Economics. Steven Levitt really hits the nail on the head for me with a quote from his bestselling book Freakonomics — "Morality, it could be argued, represents the way people would like the world to work — whereas economics represents how it actually  does work."

The majority of my technology and gadget perspective comes from that of a regular everyday old field user. Chip sets, clock speeds and formal benchmarks mean little to me — I look at a gadget and it either seems fast / slow, useful / ridiculous, cool / clunky, etc…

I spent 23 1/2 years selling residential mortgage loans and hated just about every day of it. One night, after sitting in someone’s living room at 1 AM (yup, an hour after midnight and I was taking a loan application in someone’s house) I decided that if "this" is what success is, I don’t want to be successful.

Starting in 1998, I began to work my way out of mortgage banking and into tech / business consulting. My consulting approach came from the perpective of a business professional that had been in the trenches and that knew what other business people needed to move to higher levels of success and productivity. I got to make connections between what people told me they wanted to have happen and available tools.

In 2000, I quit my mortgage job and opened my own consulting firm — my timing sucked. The tech bust and 9/11 left my wife and I praying over the mailbox each day that someone would pay their invoices and we’d be able to make the house payment. Then, my wife had a heart attack and I realized, the stress of self-employment was too high a cost to pay for the freedoms.

I tried-out several jobs trying to find a gig that I liked and that liked me. While still doing mortgages, I wrote some articles for an ACT! newsletter. I stumbled into exploring the interaction between Palm and ACT! for an article, having used other mobile technology like the Timex Datalink watch and a TRS 80 Model 100 "laptop" computer before my first Palm.

Looking for Palm support, I ended up in posting boards and began to give as much — or more — support than I got. As my ACT! consulting business grew, I also gained more Palm consulting clients. Then I took a job working with FranklinCovey and my handheld support network grew exponetially.

During those early days of my handheld use, I dabbled in Windows CE / Pocket PC only to find it slow and unreliable. It wasn’t until I started working on a phrase translation project that I warmed-up to Pocket PC — until then, I was a Palm man all the way. 

I eventually took a moderators spot on a major PDA web site and moved up the line due to several weird turns of events to Editor in Chief. The parent company ended-up being shut down due to problems with IRS (not my company, but the site I worked for) and I ended-up freelancing at a few sites.

Having met Chris Leckness at a convention in Vegas, I approached him to help with iPAQHQ. He let me jump-in with two feet and I’ve been working as the main News Editor for that site for a little over a year now.

It took about five years, but I finally found a "day job" I really love. I’m the Business Manager (conscience) / Traffic (commercials) Manager for a couple of local radio stations in Annapolis, MD. I get to go to work in a Rolling Stones t-shirt and jeans, listen to great music all day and have fun. Daily, I balance the ying and yang of terresrial radio — is radio a sound delivery system that is supported with advertising OR is it an advertising delivery system that attracts listeners with audio content?

My taste for gadgets reaches broad — I’m as likely to be found drooling over the equipment in a shiny bright Apple Store as I am over tools at Home Depot. I have a special place in my heart for grilling — I firmly believe that God is a barbecue guy (note all the references to alters with meat cooked as a sacrifice.)

I’m loking forward to having some fun here at Mobility Site — it’s great to be here!
   

Chris Leckness (3531 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

Chris Leckness is the Owner/Administrator of Mobilitysite. He is a Microsoft MVP, Mobile Devices and a member of the exclusive focus group, Mobius. Chris runs a Mobilitysite, GotZune, and a few other smaller sites and blogs. His personal blog is chris.leckness.com.