My name is Bill de Armas and I'm from New Orleans ... click on my picture for a bigger image.

It was fun growing up in New Orleans with the Mardi Gras, the French Quarter, peeping into the strip clubs on Bourbon Street, that fabulous French/Creole cuisine, boiled crawfish, and all that Dixieland jazz. I attended LSU with undergraduate studies in shooting pool  &  playing bridge, and later started my real career in 1965 working for AT&T (during which I got drafted by the U.S. Army and spent 18 months in Germany). I returned to continue with AT&T and then transferred to BellSouth where I finished my telephone company tenure  by accepting an early retirement offer in 1991. Subsequently did computer consulting & software creation and even worked on a scuba dive boat for a season. Lastly, in 1996, I was hired by Nextel to move to South Florida and manage their computer network for 8 years until finally and formally retiring. In February of 2009, I embarked on a new adventure earning my U.S. Merchant Marine Officer's credentials and I am now a fully licensed Charter Boat Captain (50 ton Master) driving scuba dive boats. But the story doesn't end there; in January of 2010 I advanced  my certification to USCG Licensed 100 Ton Master and began driving a 75' charter yacht.

I've had some interesting experiences; as a teenager I pumped gas in a filling station (back in the days when we checked your oil and cleaned the windshield), was a baker in a donut shop, worked for a music company delivering pianos, played music in a rock 'n roll band, and then I grew up (oh really?). Raced motorcycles, snow skied, owned several boats, was an accomplished water skier (slalom, barefoot, etc.), became an avid scuba diver, traveled around the Caribbean diving (Bahamas, Caymans, Turks & Caicos, Grenada, Mexico, Honduras, Curacao), and who knows what or where next. Anybody for bungee-jumping?

      Comments may be sent to  wdearmas@bellsouth.net