About

 My life story so far...

My name is Franky Brandt; here you'll find some info about my life so far.
I was born on December 1,1964                                                
There isn't much to tell about my youth; I went to school like every boy and girl.
I quit school at the age of 16 and started as an apprentice in the meat sector, standard school was boring, later i catched up when IT became an interest.
After successfully ending that I was 19 and I was between jobs for about 2 years
Then I found a steady job in that sector but after 5 years I decided to change into a completely different kind of work; I changed to the carpet industry.
In 1992 I was hit by the computers and in December 1998 I decided to leave my job and started working as a software developer.
I still do that right now.

Around November 1987 Ann came into my life and we got married on October 7,1988.
I had a lot of hobby's over the years:
Reading comic books was something we all did from being a child.
Around the age of 16 I had photography as a hobby too.
In school we had a teacher who showed us the joy of  making photos.

In my little room I developed photos and films for fun.
I have seen a lot of places in Belgium when I joined the  walking club WSV Aalter, every week I did several walking routes of 21 km and more.(I guess I was more healthy then)
Around 1980 I got a CB transmitter (27 MHz), all my friends had one and it was a way of keeping in touch.
I was known as "Victoria" and I soon developed as a DX-master as they call it.
There was a local organization called Traffic Center that used the 27 mc for surveillance on manifestations.
I had connections in Italy, Spain, Scotland, England, Azores, brazil, Denmark and so on.
My international call sign was 16 AM 121. That was (and is) not legal, transmitting with 100 watts and a beam antenna, only 0.5 watts was allowed then.
I had several CB equipments the latest, Ham International Jumbo, being the max.
After a few years this was ended by the governement, they took everything.  
I have always had an interest in radio, in my youth I was charmed with pirates like radio Mi Amigo and radio Caroline broadcasting from the north sea.

Early 1980's local radio stations came up and I just had to join the club.
I engaged in a project for a radio station in Bruges called Radio Rolluik.

Then a radio station was set up in the city I live a few years later so I joined them.
This was a really good time, all being around the age of 20 we had a successful "hit radio".

The name of the radio station was DABRO and my DJ name was "Frans Koojmans".
Around 1984 that was stopped, not for legal reasons, we had no space for a studio and no money to get a new one, I still regret this...

Around 1989 the radio feeling was still present and I was offered to join Alpenradio in Bruges (I was living in Bruges then, just married).Alpenradio was the top of all radio stations in that area so how could I refuse?In that time I also helped with disco Tamara for setting up discos and playing at parties.

Of course I always liked music.

Almost every genre come across, starting with hard rock as Saxon, Scorpions and Ted Nugent this changed into disco music like Patrick Cowley, Bobby Orlando and others.
I became a fan of Doris D and the pins which was a girlie group from Holland.
(Not sure if it was the music or the 5 beautiful girls that I liked..)

I also like some classic songs like Beethoven and Mozart.
The music of Frank Zappa may be very strange at times ,still I liked him very much.
Around 1987 I got interested in Prince.
I had a few albums and when I saw him at Antwerp with his Sign of the times tour it became clear to me: this is it!
He was my one and only artist I like d most, being the best performer around the globe and I wouldn't miss a concert by him....life is not the same anymore since he passed.

Since 1985 I also like to play Snooker , I occasionally went to a club for a few hours of play on the big table until 2019, that all changed now, i now play about 30 hours/week and have my table at home.

And finally computing.
These machines always interested me and my brother in law had one so after an introduction by him I wanted a machine like that.
My first one had an 80286 processor, a hdd of 32 Mb and 1-Mb ram (this was in 1992)
I soon joined a school for adult education of computing because I wanted to know everything about this crazy machine.

Modules taken: Dos(2 modules), Base programming (Nassi-schneidermann struct),
Pascal(3 modules), C++(4 modules), Excel, Access, Html, Dreamweaver,Flash and Delphi(5 modules).
I have a passion for all aspects of IT, Sql, Delphi, hardware, developing, databases like Oracle, Sql server, Firebird & Interbase.
The smell of new hardware! Ahhh.
In 2002 i was part of the beta team for Devexpress on the grid components v 4.
Every one has to upgrade now and then and I wanted to be able to perform any upgrade myself.So now I upgrade the PC's of all my friends and became a "problem solver" that way.I now work as a Delphi programmer on firebird databases.
Some components i made can be found online on various Delphi sites.. type my name in google and you'll see ;)

Being online a lot and with major interests on IT and Prince i have made many friends, amongst others i am a moderator at The Royal Hub, and i was a moderator at the Conroz & Housequake Prince forums until it stopped being fun.

There were also dark moments in life for me...2003 was for a part a happy year because i had many new friends online, but it's also the year i had a romantic thing with one of them, followed by a difficult time in marriage and a depression.

All dark clouds are gone now

Late 2005 i had my first surgery ever, gallstone operation, which went quite well

 

A few facts about me....

I love pasta.
I hardly ever travel far.
I never dance, and i find people who do acting childish & not in control.
If i travel, UK is probably the destination.
I have never hurt a human being in my entire life.
I only socialise with people who deserve it, if you mess up, your out
Being an IT expert doesn't make me a hacker.
I never lie, i never say anything if i can't prove it
I hate hypocrites & liars & bullies.
I hate football/soccer, it's a stupid game
I'm an honest hard working man, who loves to help people with their questions & problems, i have my heart on the right place..