Subtitle: THE FIRST DEGREE
Genre: Fiction/Action/Adventure/Horror/Historical
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~~~AUTHOR BIO~~~
Son of a hospital head cook, Nikolaus Baker was born in the rural village of Mauchline. This friendly once mining village is situated in west of Scotland, Ayrshire, about thirty miles from Glasgow. Steeped in Scottish History from the Covenanters to the life and works of Robert Burns, who also lived in the same village. Nikolaus was educated at Auchinleck Academy in the early 1970s and attended various technical colleges part-time, obtaining various scientific qualifications and later graduated, while in full-time employment in 1993, with a BA degree with the Open University.
Nikolaus has had many interests and in his early teens, he was a keen Scout, gaining his Chief Scouts Award. An enthusiastic hill walker, and also completed some rock climbs. Always keeping fit, Nikolaus would be first to admit it, he would never harm a fly, and prefers running to fighting!
When he left school in the 1970s, Ayrshire, which was an unemployment black-spot and the main employers being coal mining industry and the plastics factory, soon found himself on the dole. His scientific interests merited him for a job in education as a laboratory assistant, cleaning at first test tubes, and science laboratories. Strangely enough, this first job was with the same academy he had left, only months before! This seemed quite funny, when his friends would joke with him. He gained promotion as a lab technician, after studying for many scientific qualifications, with a special aptitude in Biology, and Chemistry. It was while working at Irvine Royal Academy, he met a friend who had a hobby with microcomputers, and Nikolaus became quickly spell-bound by this quick moving technology. He enjoyed working in the schools, and always found helping the pupils very rewarding.
Moving to find work in Glasgow in the mid 1980s as a computer technician, he was always eager to learn, and help both lecturing staff and students with their project work. He moved on again to a higher position of analyst/Programmer in the Council. It was at this time that he met and married his wife Aileen, and they have two boys, and a daughter.
Always one for keeping up with new technology and new challenges, he worked with several other large employers, before his interests turned towards management.
Fately, this was a strategic pitfall for him, finding himself quickly unemployed, through no fault of his own. With a small government run company, he realized too late, that he had been only required for the relocation of premises and launch of this company, finding out the hard way that ego centric personalities came into play and it didn't matter how good you were at your job or whether you had a family. Out of a job, and his family plummeted straight down, and onto the breadline.
This sent Nikolaus into a spiral, moving through different jobs in the same line, but none provided them with the security they required. Working for a once successful electronic company, specializing in printed circuit boards, the spectre of redundancy loomed even closer and once again with no alternative, but to try I.T. management again.
Baker had always been one to stand up and voice his opinion, when he believed that things were wrong whereever he found it and he would stand up for the underdog, knowing fine well that there were some hidden agendas, and hit lists. On one such occasion on his first week of employment, Baker was advised that he would have to sack an individual! This did not go down well with him, after all, a spade was always a spade with Baker, and he too found himself out of a job again. Battling between employer power plays and oversized egos, were too much, even for him. His wife and family stood by him, and they braved the storms once again.
Completely disillusioned with the way his world had become and out of a job, and as luck would have it, he applied to a small family I.T. Business in Glasgow, securing a position in part of the I.T. Development team in a niche market. He made many friends, and had a lot of respect for this small firm. It was a tough job, where your position was always on the line, but Baker had great respect for an American Manager, and they both spoke directly with each other on different occasions. The company never took on dead wood, and Baker found friendship, and much achievement in this company. It was a firm, where a spade was a spade!
One day in the early millennium and out of the blue, Nikolaus was diagnosed with cancer. The company supported him through this difficult time, and for which he was very grateful. Mr. Baker also eternally indebted to all those who helped save his life, and Nikolaus has made a full recovery. He thanks his Doctors at the local health centre for their help, the surgeon in Ayr Hospital-Ballochmyle suite, who performed the surgery, and their Nurses. He also thanks the Radiotheraphy Department, Consultants, Nursing and support staff, stationed at the Beatson in Glasgow.
As a young man, he always liked reading fiction books, and in his early twenties, attempted to write his first book. He felt that he had a good story, but it proved too difficult at that time. Although he had the imagination, Nikolaus did not have the experience in life, and knowledge. Twenty-three years later, he had gained all the experience he needed! There is an endless wealth of knowledge on the internet, but found also that nothing is better than going to the library to research various topics, cross checking fact from fiction, or being in a place and feeling the atmosphere to stimulate the mind. With all the wheeling and dealings and hidden agendas, studying the different colours of human personalties and emotions, put-downs and power-plays, Baker was fully equipped to entertain and is now quite capable to mess with your mind.
Writing the book to him has been both extremely challenging, and at the same time therapeutic. His secret passion of writing a book is one in which he has had since a boy, and now it would be realized, and come to fruition with GODSCHAIN. "GODSCHAIN" is a series of books, and the first being 'GENESIS' and 'THE FIRST DEGREE.' What better a background than being born in a place full of history, including the enigmatic Freemasons villages and towns to the summary killing times of the Covenanters, and religious tensions in Scotland, mixed with manipulation of human life by those people of power?
seems like a really nice blog :)
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