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Stuart Woodward's Personal History page | ||||||||||
| This page contains various details to allow people who have lost touch with me to get in contact again. If you came here via a search engine, I hope find the information that you looking for! | |||||||||||
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Leamington |
London |
Yokohama |
1988-1992 Tokyo | 1992-Today
Yokohama |
| Education | Volunteer Work | Employment | ||
| I was born in Royal
Leamington Spa, Warwickshire,
UK in 1967 and
lived there until 1985. During this time, I attended Whitnash County Junior
and Infants School, later North Leamington School, Croft Hall and then
Binswood Hall 6th form College.
My brothers Robert & Andrew Woodward still live in Leamington. My sister Helen Campbell lives in Linlithgow. My father Arthur Woodward was born in Coventry in 1920. My mother Margaret (nee Gibb) was born in Aberdeen in 1925. On my mothers side her parents were from Morayshire her Grandfather was William Campbell of Lossiemouth. Inventor of the Zulu fishing vessel. My father's family come from Coventry and Warwickshire especially Granbourough and on his mother's side his grandfather Long lived in Offchurch. |
In 1985 I went to The City University London where I studied for a B.Sc. Honours degree in Computer Engineering. | After graduating in 1988, I was looking for one years volunteer work. The University Chaplain Jonathan Smith suggested The Missions to Seamen who accepted by application and I joined the their student assistant scheme and became the assistant to the chaplain of the port of Yokohama, John Berg. | After my year at the Missions to Seamen
was over I joined Newtech Co. Ltd near Ochanomizu in Tokyo as the assistant
to the chief engineer, The
Grand Waszir (mail him if you dare...), founder of the "First Amendment
BBS", Tokyo a thriving cyber Tokyo several years before the Internet.
During my 2 years working at Newtech I got a grounding in IBM PC architecture, mixed C & Assembly language programming. |
In 1992 I joined Lotus Development Japan in Gotanda
in Tokyo and started work on the DOS version of Japanese version of
Lotus 1-2-3. Later, I moved to the Windows development group where I work today on finding solutions to the problems of developing international software for the Japanese and more general Asian market. After Lotus I joined Vanguard, a small internet startup and worked there until it was aquired by larger Japanese company. |
| Computing |
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| Until 1982 I counted on my fingers and toes
My first computer was a Sinclair ZX Spectrum. |
At University we used Berkeley BSD Unix on a Gould computer and Whitechapel Workstations. | On the first Thursday of most months
you'll find me at the Tokyo PC Users Group
Meeting. I have also been involved with the TPC since 1989.
Since then, I have held the positions of President, Vice President, Newsletter Publisher and Secretary and did a sint of designing the cover for the monthly newsletter<, Algorithmica Japonica I also help to maintain the TPC Website. Currently we are holding the meeting at the Tokyo Union Church in Harajuku. It is a good place to make friends and to find out where to get PC bargains in Tokyo. Take a look at the TPC home page for details about the meetings and regular guided tours of the Akihabara electric goods and computer shop district. |
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Queens Square London |
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Tokyo |
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| Yokohama Christ Church | St.
Alban's Church
YASA Member |
Yokohama Christ Church | ||
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Location |
Location |
Locations |
| For the first 18 years of my life I lived in 2 Southway Leamington Spa, CV31 2PE. | During the first year (1985) I lived in Northampton Hall near the Barbican Centre. During the second year I lived in a crazy house in 142 King's Cross Road. During my final year I lived in Finsbury Hall, Goswell Road. | My first year in Yokohama was spent in Yamashita Cho near Chinatown. | In Tokyo I lived in Shinagawa Ku between Oimachi and NishiOi JR Stations in Futaba. | In 1996 I moved from Maita Cho, Minami Ku, Yokohama. Later I lived in Ohno Cho, Kanagawa Ku in the new Portside development near Yokohama Station in Arte Yokohama a building designed by the architect Michael Graves. Since 2001 I have lived in Yamashita Cho near Chinatown in Yokohama. |
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| 1992
When I was at Croft Hall, I was lucky enough to go a cruise on the S.S. Uganda. (Thanks Mum and Dad.) This turned out to be the last full cruise of the Uganda as we were told the amazing news that while we had been out of the country Britain and, of all places, Argentina were at war. The cruise after ours was cut short and the Uganda was refitted and sailed to the Falklands as a hospital ship and afterwards scrapped. |
The
Missions to Seamen offers young people the chance to work in a seamen's
club for a year as assistant to the chaplain.
The job involves going down to the ships in the port and giving a welcome to seamen and offering help to peoples of all creeds and nationalities. The mission provides many services including transport to the town and a club where seamen can make international telephone calls, change money outside of bank hours and get a cheap beer. |
When I lived in Tokyo one the places
that I used to enjoy hanging out in on a Friday night, was a small Blues
bar in the back streets of Roppongi call "Hoboya".
Kevin Ryan and I discovered it after
a TPC pool party - we were looking for a Spanish restaurant but
were
The staff there were Blues musicians themselves and they had an amazing selection of Blues CDs. They could also cook up a mean Yaki Udon. Just the thing at 1 am on a Saturday morning. After the "Bubble" burst they had to close the bar and there was a final farewell party at a club in Roppongi attend by all the bar regulars. The staff and friends formed the band. |
I do most of
my work under Japanese Windows 95 using Visual C++ enabling US software
to cope with the Japanese Shift-JIS and Unicode character sets and implementing
features required by the local market.
For more information see my resume |
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