I’ve been around for at least over a year, but just haven’t gotten around to doing a coherent intro post yet.
I casually encountered MNFurs when browsing through FA. I used to meet with a client biweekly in the metro area (which is an hour drive away for me). One day I figured, “Well, I should make use of my drive up here and do something else in the metro area to make my drive more worth it.” So I had gone to the Perkins biweekly meet one time, without knowing anyone in advance, sitting in the corner with socially awkward mannerisms and at least made some light conversation with a few people here and there.
I was a little indifferent of it all, but over time I had continued just going to the biweekly meets anyway and met more people and eventually figured “Oh well, I guess I’ll just finally register on the website anyway.” Thus far, I’ve gone to probably 20-30 biweekly meets, 3-4 picnics, 2 holiday parties, 2-3 community meetings, Con Zero, and Furry Migration.
Even though I’ve been around for at least some time, I still figure it’s worth writing some extent of an intro post.
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In summary I’m a self-taught, self-employed web developer currently. The way that I somewhat fit into the fandom is from my long-standing obsession of wolves and werewolves.
Technology-wise, I had been dumber than a doorknob as a kid with access to a computer. I’d screw around and tinker and be curious of all the things, but didn’t have any really opportunity to learn anything as I never had anyone to ask questions about technology. Didn’t really even learn programming, as I didn’t understand that I needed a compiler, and the only books at the library were about proprietary trialware programming languages.
Around my middle school years I had started to participate in online communities, and from there I excelled onward and learned web development, 3d modeling, and a variety of other things all from help available on the internet. My brother was just starting his own business at that time (majored in ecology, wanted to be a ecology college professor, stumbled, and instead started a pond construction business), and so I had helped with constructing his website, and tried to improve it in every way possible over the years, and learned many things in the process.
Some amount of years later I had started tinkering with Linux and various open source technologies given that I finally had my own little computer to tinker with (of something that was of Windows 98SE capable hardware, rather than Windows 3.1 or older computers). Years after that I had become a little politically active and engaged in the delegate process, all the way up to the state convention for the 2012 presidential cycle.
In the political process I had met more friends and gotten into more interests. One is a business partner that currently contracts web design/dev work to me (and of whom is a designer that I revere as a deity, in context of design), and another had introduced me to the world of ham radio (I’m currently a Technician-class operator) and has been a helpful resource on explaining the backend and architectural components of the internet and telephone system (given that they’ve ran their own ISP and have been involved in the old 2600 groups and such).
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And biography aside, to generally explain myself as an individual: I don’t know everything (such as in the context of technology) and am always curious to learn more. I’ll tend to have heavy debate over some topics, but I don’t intend to convey that I’m some “know-it-all” or anything condescending. Sometimes I’ll defend minority views, even if it’s not my own view, whenever people are just beating some topic to death in unison (such as conspiracy theories, for example), which may sometimes confuse people to think that I hold very bizarre views.
I tend to act a bit introvertedly and sometimes may appear as if I’m being avoidant of some people. I’m not trying to avoid anyone and I don’t hold any grudges or biases, the mannerisms are just a side effect of social anxiety. I’ll gladly be willing to socialize with anyone, but it may be a little difficult to find a mutual topic sometimes since I live a fairly sheltered life and have a bit narrow of interests (or at least from my perspective). I’m quite selfless and willing to help and contribute with anything, especially with anything that I commercially do. I don’t get annoyed by anyone needing help or asking questions on things that I may be able to have an answer to.
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That should just about cover everything, and just in case, here’s about everything else unmentioned (of music artists, movies, games, choices, etc):
- Music: Aphex Twin, Amon Tobin, Clint Mansell, Gorillaz, Murcof, Radiohead, System of a Down (or just check my Spotify account in my profile)
- Movies: An American Werewolf in London, Cursed, Freeborn, The Fountain, The Road, The Shining, Underworld, Van Helsing, Wolf’s Rain
- Games: Penumbra/Amnesia series, Minecraft, Little Inferno, Don’t Starve, almost every Valve game, Okami, Legend of Zelda series, original Splinter Cell games, SimCity series (not touching 5), “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream”, The Cat Lady, and anticipating the release of “Night in the Woods” and “SOMA”
- Technobabble: Ubuntu, Linux Mint, GNOME 3 over Unity, systemd, a disdain of Shuttleworth,
- Languages: PHP, Python, Javascript, C
- Books: two shelves of programming and web technology books, ham radio reference books and manuals, Bruce Schneier books (Schneier on Security, Carry On, Cryptography Engineering), “Just for Fun” (Linus Torvalds autobiography),
- Loyalties/Choices: ASUS (motherboards), EVGA (for NVIDIA graphics cards), AMD, Antec (power supplies), Kenwood, Wouxun, H&K
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~ Drake M.
~ Drake M.
