My name is Dal Ogle. I was raised mostly in Nashville, Tennessee until I was in 2^nd grade and Russellville, Alabama until I left home for the Army. I was a mediocre high school student, an Army cold-warrior and after a few jobs in retail, a civil engineer. I married a girl from Sheffield, Alabama and have a 12 year-old daughter. My family and I attend the Episcopal Church.

My engineering career began in county government. The county had a whopping 14,000 people. The town to which I moved my “city mouse” wife was a thriving metropolis of 2,700 people. We restored a house just outside of town and after noon on Wednesday and Saturday a forty-five minute trip to Columbus, Mississippi was frequently required.

After a couple of years I moved on to a private engineering firm. I made millions, for someone else. I was good at it. I seem to have an inborn fondness for molding people. That trait probably comes from my father who found himself called from the computer world in the private sector to teaching in a middle school when I was seven.

I too felt the tug after a few years. All the REAL FUN work seemed to be done by the guys at the DOT. In the private sector, your projects are only as good as your client can afford. If I wanted to build big things like the Interstate and NOT only nibble around the edges, I knew I had to go to the public sector. I also had an important role model in my father. He believed that “to whom much is given” and he lived it. In his mid-seventies he still teaches night classes to help people get their high school diploma.

That is really it.

We have very normal lives. We carry a kid to school, then voice lessons, then gymnastics, then Girl Scouts, soccer… We go to church. We spend weekends mowing grass, cleaning house and go on a bike ride or a hike. We catch a movie at the theatre because we have that popcorn bucket. We clean gutters. We work. We have two dogs, a cat and a mortgage. We are, well, sometimes painfully normal.

I started this blog because I love to write. I hope some of what I say gives you something to laugh about or ponder. I hope you enjoy it and come back often. Please leave feedback and as long as it is fit to print, I will try to post it.