Gary Gocek

 

Progressive Christianity: Caterpillar to Butterfly - nonfiction released 26 August 2025, Kindle and paperback.
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FNYCS2H5/

The Perils of Perry Portly: North Coast Parody and Satire, Book 1 - Fairport humor released 15 November 2025, Kindle.
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G2HZ1WR3/

The Isness of Isabel^©2026, contemporary fiction with a spiritual element, planned for 2026.
Paul's Letters to the Cypriots^©2026, biblical fiction planned for 2027.
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/58716559.Gary_Gocek

Gary lives in upstate New York with his lovely wife and Maverick and Maeve. Gary has two successful sons, Greg and Dan.

● Gocek family blog gocekbloggary.blogspot.com

● Movie & travel reviews movietravelreviews.blogspot.com

Articles
LinkedIn ... Facebook
@garygocek at Twitter and Mastodon

Support and shelter for at-risk women and children.

PGP public key ... (About PGP)
Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator ISTJ*
Association for Computing Machinery (joined 1980) ... I have written book reviews for IEEE Computer and SIGCAS.

I attended Liverpool, NY Central Schools (1963-1976). I earned a BS in CS in 1981 from Rochester Inst. of Tech. and was a resident (1977-1980) of the acclaimed Computer Science House. (See my CSH page). I retired in 2023 from a career in software development (most recently full-stack, Microsoft/Azure). Scroll around for information about my family, tech, music, spiritual and other interests!

St. Luke's Episcopal Church, Fairport, NY (Sun, 15 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000)
You can usually find Gary on Sunday mornings at 10 am at St. Luke's Episcopal Church (9 am Independence Day to Labor Day). There are other services as well. See the church web site for more info.

The Gary Gocek podcast - readings and musical performances of published and original works.
A playlist of my acoustic music recordings.
Gary's WFH Youtube playlist.

● Polish Heritage Society of Rochester polishheritagerochester.org

I was elected to the Liverpool Fine Arts Hall of Fame in 2009. I received a scholarship in 2009 from the Polish Heritage Society of Rochester in recognition of work on the PHSR web site. I received a volunteer award from the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in 1996. I was active in Scouting.

I have attended (6/99, 2/02, 2/03, 2/06, 2/11) SummerSongs. Sue and I like Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen. I have marched, instructed and volunteered with pageantry organizations. Here are the lrics to Jabka, a polka.

Join a professional society in your field and embrace its code of ethics. Promote community service, church (etc.) and the arts. People learn to succeed when they're able to interact with successful people. Diversity on its own does not ensure success, but no one starts out "successful". Everyone should be given a chance to succeed. It's OK to address failure, but don't discriminate against someone who hasn't yet had a chance to succeed. People tend to live and work with others who are in a similar stage of life, so where can a person just starting to climb the ladder of success interact with successful people? One of the few welcoming environments is a place of worship. Are you looking for role models? Go to church, synagogue, mosque, coven, etc. Are you a successful person looking to improve your community? Go to your place of worship and welcome others. Make the internet a better place.

Godwin's Law ... Jokes ... Magnetic Poetry® seen on our fridge: * pull up my little wedgey roughly * Dan is a gridiron champion * here be Gocek country * flood the symphony of mud mountain * burn not the ugly blister * dad is a tremendously fat huge pig eating dinosaur * stride through chocolate gardens, they shadow death as do my tremendous muscles
Art is not a thing; it is a way. - Elbert Hubbard, American author, c. 1900.
It doth confound our merriment. - "Beyond the Fringe" revue, from "So That's the Way You Like It", 1964 (Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett, Jonathan Miller).
Fourth floor! Clocks, locks, socks, smocks, and langerayyyy (lingerie)! - Daffy Duck, "Looney Tunes" character.
The last bug isn't fixed until the last user is dead. - Sidney Markowitz**, 1980-ish
No matter where you go, however far away, a part of me will be with you and a part of you, with me, will stay. But to see her was to love her, love but her, and love her forever. As for me, to love you alone, to make you happy, to do nothing which would contradict your wishes, this is my destiny and the meaning of my life. - Napoleon Bonaparte, in letters to Joséphine de Beauharnais, c. 1800. Second sentence is from "Ae Fond Kiss" by Robert Burns, 1791.

* Regarding my Myers-Briggs type of ISTJ, this preference was reported by "the MBTI Instrument" in 2017. I had previously taken the instrument around 1990 and my preference then was a cross between INTJ/INFJ. My intuitive "N" had changed strongly to a sensing "S". I attribute this to a change from my younger days when I was full of innovative ideas, but nowadays prefer standards and processes. A trainer in 2017 says we don’t intrinsically change, but over time our preferences may change, such as after 30+ years in jobs that emphasize standards and processes. ISTJs comprise about 11% of the US population, but specialized groups such as lay and clergy leaders in my mainline Protestant diocese may have different demographics, and my type is less common there.

** Regarding Sidney Markowitz, I recall seeing this first in a magazine article shortly after graduating from college and in my first real programming job, in the early 1980s. It's possible the magazine was "Creative Computing", but I don't think so. The article listed several computer-related one-liners. I saved the paper article for a while, but apparently discarded it. I recall the article quoted NASA sources and I also recall the article named the source for this quote with only a last name, but I don't recall the name or if he or she was a NASA employee. "Sidney Markowitz" claimed in a 2009 blog post (retained on archive.org) to be the originator. My vague recollection is that "Markowitz" was not the name given in the magazine article, but I can't say for sure. Markowitz refers to a Wired magazine interview in which "Richard Soley" attributes the quote to "a friend". According to Markowitz, Markowitz worked for a company that partnered with a company founded by Soley, but it's not clear Soley and Markowitz ever met. "Soley's friend" sounds something like what I remember from that magazine of the '80s, but I don't think the magazine was "Wired", which didn't publish until 1993. Soley's company worked with Intel 286 and 386 PCs, developed in the early 1980s, so the timing is right. I am always wary of self-proclaimed brilliance on the Internet, and even Markowitz admits the quote evolved with colleagues from a debugging reference into a general software reference. Still, it appears Sidney was in the right place at the right time.