The Semi-OT Get to Know Your TeAmmates Thread

[IJump]

Well, I had been gone for a while, then came back to a few familiar old names and a lot of new names. So, I need to know what is up with you people. Let everyone know who and what you are outside of the DC world. Everyone can look at stats and see what you are in the DC world, I am interested in what people do with the rest of their time....

I'll go first and I'll try not to make this sound like a personal ad...

I started DC stuff back in 2001 or something like that. I have crunched RC5, SETI, Enigma, SoB (a little), and some other stuff that I can't remember. I must be getting old.

My family comes first. Wife and two kids.

I work for a school as a network administrator and I also coach football. I have coached football for several years and love it. For those of you that don't know, football is a year round sport. We get a couple of weeks off in December, a couple of weeks off around spring break, and a couple of weeks off in the summer. I wouldn't have it any other way.

I have been in the military for several years, both active and reserve. I have served on 4 continents and in 11 countries. Germany and Korea were awesome. The saraha, not so much... I can't wait for them to send me to either Australia or Antartica, but I have to figure out a way to convince them to do that...

I also have a Harley that I love to ride. I need to get some good cold weather gear, the desert screwed me up as far as temperatures go. I think 50 is freezing now.


OK, that is me, now what about you?

 

[PeterN]

I can't let my team mate go alone on this so:

My name is Peter, as most of you know. I live in The Netherlands, but am a avid member of Team Anandtech, despite the 3-4 years of absence. In the past I got several invites to join the DPC, but here at TA I feel at home. According to my join date here in the forum I'm a member since 1999, didn't know it was that long.

In daily life I was working for the Dutch national police force. Doing research in open sources (aka internet) and such for the last two years. Before that I was involved in setting up an intranet environment with al the ups and downs that go with it.
After twenty years, I decided I wanted something else so I found a position as webmaster for both the intranet and the internet in the city I live in (Zoetermeer). This is going to be a real challenge, since the government invests heavily in the whole E-service thingy for civilians. That means a lot of development of new forms, structures and other stuff people can make up.

In private life, I live with my wife and eight year old daughter. It is the same as with IJump, family first. That was the reason for my TA-absence.
As most of the old-timers can remember, my daughter got ill several years ago. She had a double kidney that wasn't working right. It took about 4 years before they could do surgery on her, because she had to be completely clean of bacteria. Only thing is , those buggers kept coming back.
After her surgery, we could see the improvement almost right away. And now, she is growing and prospering as never before.

Furthermore I have some websites of which one is the most important. It is about Distributed Computing (is there anything else? ) When it is set up properly, I'll give the address here. Developing new ideas for this website and the team is one thing I like, so let's keep that one of my priorities also.

The interaction with people from all over the world is one of the most attractive things here in the forums, especially with all those nice, educated, well-thought, enthusiastic, unbeneficial, ....................................... (anything else I can say to patch up your self esteem ) people.

That's it I think.
Oh yeah, one thing, I hope my stay here may be a long one. Otherwise I'll start missing all those crazy remarks.

 

[Coquito]

Adam, resident free-spirit & everliving lawn gnome.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Excellent thread idea. Now if I could just make an Official DC FS/T thread and Official DC Quick Quest thread, I'd be happy as could be.

My name is Dwayne and I'm married to a fellow cruncher (lizardth). She actually got me into DC back in the SETI classic days. We have no kids unless you count our cat- and dog-children. In the real world I am currently a Emergency Communications Officer (aka dispatcher) at a university here in San Marcos, TX. And yes, we have real officers, not 'rent-a-cops'. I am going to be putting in my application for tech jobs at the university today or tomorrow, so we'll see how that goes.

I was in the US Navy for 8 years, but I'm done with that now. No reserve or anything anymore, and I have 80% disability to show for my time in. Not really physically disabled; skin condition and insomnia account for the majority of it. I guess that is about it. Desiderata = words to live by. Love they wife, work they machines, and strive to be happy. <-- just made that up, and I like it.

Ugh, I'm tired--time to go to bed.

EDIT: Damn, I forgot about my limoncello. :laugh: I make my own limoncello, which happens to be my beverage of choice. If anyone is ever in the area, drop by...

 

[petrusbroder]

I can't let my team mates go alone on this ... and especially not an other Peter ...

I live in northern Sweden, in the county of Västerbotten (that means west of the Bottenviken, which is the northern part of the Baltic Sea, which separates Sweden and Finland). In Finland the area east of the Bottenviken is called ... would you guess? ... Österbotten.

The city of Umeå is the capital of Västerbotten, has the 5th largest and most modern university in Sweden (Umeå University with some 25 000 students in 6 faculties). I could tell you a lot about the university's computer center, but I won't bore you. Suffice to know that Umeå is sitting across one of the largest internet backbones in Europe - several TBit/s. Umeå is a growing city, just now 111 000 inhabitants, with a prognosis of 150 000 before 2050. The mean age of the inhabitants is some 37 years ...

I am very proud of Umeå: it has it's on opera house -Norrlandsoperan- , a world class symphony orchestra, many many jazz clubs and a very much growing music industry. The main stays of economy is timber, high tech of all kinds and reindeers (yes, there are many more reindeers in Västerbotten than inhabitants!).

For me family comes first: my own 3 kids (2 daughters, aged 16 and 14, a son aged 11) and my wife's three kids (a daugther 19 and two sons 17, 15). They all study and they all use computers some 4 - 6 hours/day - and not only for gaming. Having 5 teenagers and one soon-to-be teenager at home is quite ... interesting and it helps tremendously that all six are very good natured and polite kids - even if they insist on doing all the mistakes their parents did and then a few more. Two of the daughters are into music - they attend a great school - college- of performing arts and are already performers who have the trouble to have to say "no" to engagements. They play rock, punk and will soon (OK this year) release their first CD.

I live in a large, computer heated house (yes, my computer farm heats my house with the help of a heat exchanger and - for very cold times - a deep well ground heat unit). Usually the temperature is 20 - 22ºC indoors ... which is perfect for the inhabitants and the computers - no AC at all needed. In summer we pull cool air from the ground and expel the hot air into the chimney.

I work at the University hospital as a psychiatrist (1/3 of my time) and scientist/professor (2/3 of my time). I just love my work with mentally ill substance abusing patients and my research into the neuro-biochemistry of substance abuse.

I built my first computer in 1974 - an IMSAI with a 4 bit CPU and a whopping 16 K slow RAM. We had to etch the mobo ourselves and solder all the discrete components and the IC-holders ... We used the comp in the math-classes at school, since our teacher said:

... if the kids can program a computer to calculate the correct result then the kids must have a thorough understanding of the math problem ...

Of course we saved all our programs and chained them one after each other and thus had - I assume - one of the first object libraries used in schools.

Since then I have had Sinclair, IBM, Compaq computers, I have learned to handle IBM mainframes, DEC-VAXes, PC, Macs of all kinds, etc. Nowadays I only have a few Linux-comps (RedHat, Ubuntu), PSs with Windows and Macs with OS X. I use them all for DC, photo editing (photography being my second hobby), video editing and playing around with math for the fun of it and to teach all the kids in our house.

In the DC-world I am known as Petrusbroder, which means "brother of Petrus". In my opinion he is the most human of all the apostles, he loves many, has a quick temper (like some one else I know very well), does his mistakes, tries hard to correct them and is - considering it all - a quite complex character, who also knows how to use power. I try to help the TeAm in crunching, here in the forum and I just love races, competitions and neffing.

I also have dyslexia, which makes my spelling quite ... interesting. More than 95% of my edits are due to this - and of course due to the deficiency of my spell checker . In spite of this I am interested in languages (I have lived for at least 5 years in Germany, Slovakia, USA and Sweden) and I love reading in a few other languages. I can assure you all that the first foreign language is the hardest one to learn; the others are much more easy.

Oh, if you want to see how my daughter Josie and myself look like, take a look here! BTW, I also enjoy motorcycles. I have a Dniepr and if you look carefully on the above page you can see how it looks

Edit: would you believe it? Spelling!

 

[RaySun2Be]

RaySun2Be, aka Ray, aka Old Geezer, aka Gimpy, the one with the Red Rascal Rider and the cane collection. :evil:

I found Anandtech around March of 1999 when I was looking for information on the recommended components for building a PC. At that time, the Abit BH6 and the Celeron 300a were the hot topics due to the great overclocking abilities of that cpu. As I delved more into the Anandtech site, I found the forums. First was the Off Topic forum (yikes) and I quickly started looking at the other forums and ran across something called Distributed Computing. I lurked for a bit, found an entirely different environment here than anywhere else. People quickly answered ALL newbie questions without flaming them for asking repeated questions. People jumped at the chance to share their knowledge and experience with those who needed help, whether it be about how to network multiple computers, overclocking, or to set up a distributed client.

I got sucked in, and crunched my first ever DC work unit in distributed.net's RC5-64 project on June 23, 1999. I ran that project until a certain incident, and switched over to SETI, now known as SETI Classic. I ran that project up until it ended and they switched over to BOINC. I wasn't thrilled with the BOINC stuff at the time, so I switched over to Folding@Home and SOB.

Lived in Columbus, Oh for 23 years, up until last June where I switched jobs and now reside in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, Il. Sadly had to get rid of a lot of computer "stuff" during the move, as we downsized from a house to a 2 bedroom apt. Many Pentium 100s, dual PII400s, AT power supplies, etc.

Married for 26.5 years, 2 kids, son 23 and daughter 20 who both reside in Rochester, NY.

Currently working for a technology leasing company in their IT department and having a good time!

My pic can be found here along with many others of the TeAm: http://www.digitalportfolios.o...gs/TeAm/crunchers.html

My first exposure to the PC world was on a Commodore Pet in a Basic programming class back in 1982. Got a job as a mainframe programmer that year, didn't touch the PC world again until 1985 with an IBM AT running DOS. 6MHZ, 1Meg RAM (640K usable, used the rest as a ram drive) and 20 MEG hard drive. And I've been messing with them evert since!

 

[mooseracing]

I got some free time.

I got into this just for the heck of it, thinking maybe I could help something. Then the points tallying just gets addictive. Been going ever since I can keep the the puter up.

In my other life, I just graduated with my B.S. in C.I.S. and am now a Network Services Engineer.

I enjoy long walks on the beach and comforting phone calls to help me sleep.

Oops wrong site. Actually in my little bit of free time I enjoy, modifying my cars, adding more to my truck to make it work better off road, riding the dirt bike, screwing with computers, pretty much anything to keep my hands busy.

I have chica I've been with for alittle more than a year now, and as soon as our apt contracts are up we are moving in to a place together closer to my work.

Other than that I dunno.....Not enough time to do all my hobbies.

 

[Alyx]

Well I'm sure the young one around here it seems!

I'm Robert, 21 years old and from California. Currently I'm a 3rd year student at San Jose State University, I've got roughly two more years before I graduate with a degree in Business. Hopefully when I graduate I'll work in the tech world for a while, systems analysis seems really interesting to me. Then once I've had my fill of that I'd like to move into management, possibly returning to school for my MBA. I've been interested in computers since roughly 2003 when I was a student assistant in our High School tech department. Had a great time there and got to know some amazing people and since leaving high school I've never really left computers behind. Right now I'm working in the Tech Support department of SJSU, been here for 2 years now. On the side I've also started putting effort into my certifications. I recently passed my Comptia Network+ and will be hopefully taking my first MCSE test next week.

Outside of computers I'm really into music and an avid concert goer. I'm also into nature photography. I go on lots of weekend trips to different parks in my area and will occasionally get up at some ungodly hour to drive for sunrise pictures.

I've been around Anandtech for just a short while now, and hopefully a lot longer. Back in 2003 I crunched a little F@H with overclockers.com and when I decided to get back into the DC world I decided that since I spent most of my time reading Anandtech articles that I'd rather crunch along with the great folks here.

 

[GenHoth]

Name's Karl, I'm a student at the University of Chicago. I got into DC last July while working for Networking Services and Information Technology at my college.

I don't know what else to say, if you guys are curious about anything else just let me know.

 

[Markfw]

Mark, A Senior Programmer/Analyst for 25 years. I live with my son, 22 years old, and the 12 computers we have for Lan parties and F@H. I have been building computers since the first one I had in 1985. I like by toys, one in sig and a motorcycle Honda 900 custom (10 speed), my sand rail (I made myself from the crankshaft up) and my boat, and 2 quads.

Oh, and I LOVE movies......Watch them at home on the home theatre.

 

[Uppsala9496]

My name is Tim. I'm 35 and live in Rolling Meadows, IL with my wife (and soon to be daughter).
I am a senior underwriter for Directors and Officers, Employment Practices and Fiduciary Liability Inurance. I've been doing this going on 7 years now. Prior to that I underwrote Medical and Life Insurance.

I graduated from Illinois State in 1998. I was on the 7 year school plan. I originally went to Benedictine University on a baseball scholarship and then transfered to ISU because of the foreign exchange program they had.
What happened was in the summer of 1991 or 1992 (don't remember), I met a girl from Sweden. We hit it off, I visited there, she moved here......anyway, I transfered to ISU and moved to Uppsala, Sweden in 1994 and studied there until 1996 (hence the username). Technically the exchange program was to only last a year, but I convinced both universities how it was in my best interest to study there for 2 years.
While there I studied peace and conflict resolution studies (and the inside of bars). I also was active in volleyball and eventually became in charge of the largest Nations (think of it as a fraternity and sorority combined where every student is a member of one of 13 nations) volleyball group. We had some 75+ active members.
It was playing volleyball that I found out Sweden actually had professional baseball teams. So, I played professional baseball there (paid me about $80 (500 krona) a week plus transportation and food while travelling. It was a 3 hour train ride to and from the town the team was based in (Rättvik). Great way to see the country for free.
While there, I met many of my close friends that I either visit or who visit me every year.

I finally graduated with a bachelor's of art degree in Political Science and a bachelor of arts degree with honors in History. For some unknown reason I fell into underwriting insurance...(look at the past and predict the future).

For those of you that recall the "please delete" thread, during that time I managed to get my wife pregnant (funny what happens while neffing on AT).
She is expecting any day now and is set up to be induced on the 16th. It will be our first child and we are very excited. It will soon be 2 girls against me in the house.


- GenHoth, I noticed you go to UofC. Both my brother and mom work for their physicians group.

 

[petrusbroder]

Wow, what a group of TeAm-mates!
BTW - where is Lizardth - or any other female crunchers? :Q

 

[Alyx]

Originally posted by: Uppsala9496

She is expecting any day now and is set up to be induced on the 16th. It will be our first child and we are very excited. It will soon be 2 girls against me in the house.
group.

(early) Congratulations!

 

[PeterN]

Originally posted by: Alyx

Originally posted by: Uppsala9496
For those of you that recall the "please delete" thread, during that time I managed to get my wife pregnant (funny what happens while neffing on AT).
She is expecting any day now and is set up to be induced on the 16th. It will be our first child and we are very excited. It will soon be 2 girls against me in the house.

(early) Congratulations!

What he said. I can tell from experience it is a challenge to be the minority in the house, but a pleasant one.

Oh, and I hope the webcam wasn't on when you both were 'neffing' here.

 

[TAandy]

Okey doke!
been doing dc ever since i heard about seti@home, same as a lot of folks round here i think
had dabbled in a couple of projects, til someone on the d2ol forum mentioned AnandTech, hook, line and sinker
been crunching for them for years now, can't always put everything on, cooling fans go 'help'!!!
made 1 very good friend on here, hasn't shown up in a while, and when things were going bad, had words with another member. he knows who he is, and, thanks
so sorry!!

got a bit fed up of the boinc projects, so now, on SoB

Me?
Seperated, work full time, 2 kids (12 and 9) live with me
Detail fitter for Shorts/Bombardier btw

 

[Insidious]

Cool Thread!

I'm Scott (Sid will do)

I am another one of the old geezers (49 in a couple weeks) in here, but I try to stay young at heart (or retarded... anybody's call)

I was married, but she split when my son was 2 and it was just he and I until he grew up and started college (last year).

The PC stuff began when I bought one for him and his Monster Truck Madness didn't work right.... I came to AnandTech to learn how to fix it. OMG you guys have taught me so much! Now I just like to build them and tinker to see how fast I can get them to go.

I started DC soon after finding this site in a project called Distributed Folding, it died, and I've crunched lots of things since. My present 'home' is Folding@Home... done that a few years now.

In my spare time I like to..... (are you listening IJump?) ride my Harley, play golf, bowl, take advantage of middle aged women and all that kind of good stuff.

I am an electronic hardware design engineer and have been for the last 19 years. Purdue for a EE degree before that and 6 years as an electronic tech. in the USN Nuclear Power program before that.

I live in Indiana and have really learned to hate corn, snow, and straight, flat roads.

-Sid

 

[TAandy]

Originally posted by: Insidious
Cool Thread!

I'm Scott (Sid will do)

I am another one of the old geezers (49 in a couple weeks) in here, but I try to stay young at heart (or retarded... anybody's call)

I was married, but she split when my son was 2 and it was just he and I until he grew up and started college (last year).

The PC stuff began when I bought one for him and his Monster Truck Madness didn't work right.... I came to AnandTech to learn how to fix it. OMG you guys have taught me so much! Now I just like to build them and tinker to see how fast I can get them to go.

I started DC soon after finding this site in a project called Distributed Folding, it died, and I've crunched lots of things since. My present 'home' is Folding@Home... done that a few years now.

In my spare time I like to..... (are you listening IJump?) ride my Harley, play golf, bowl, take advantage of middle aged women and all that kind of good stuff.

I am an electronic hardware design engineer and have been for the last 19 years. Purdue for a EE degree before that and 6 years as an electronic tech. in the USN Nuclear Power program before that.

I live in Indiana and have really learned to hate corn, snow, and straight, flat roads.

-Sid

Scott?
Sid??
Goddamit(sorry
ok, i give up ("I'm Scott (Sid will do)"?

 

[IJump]

Originally posted by: Insidious
In my spare time I like to..... (are you listening IJump?) ride my Harley, play golf, bowl, take advantage of middle aged women and all that kind of good stuff.

I am an electronic hardware design engineer and have been for the last 19 years. Purdue for a EE degree before that and 6 years as an electronic tech. in the USN Nuclear Power program before that.

I live in Indiana and have really learned to hate corn, snow, and straight, flat roads.

-Sid

Of course I am listening... I started this thread!!

We might not be that far apart if you are in the southern part of the state. I in in Central KY. I love corn, though...

 

[Insidious]

Originally posted by: TAandy
ok, i give up ("I'm Scott (Sid will do)"?

ANDY! Hi mate!

Everyone in here is so used to calling me Sid.... I kind of got used to it.

I just realized it's Friday..... that IS the day isn't it? I've missed those Fridays.

Originally posted by: IJump

We might not be that far apart if you are in the southern part of the state. I in in Central KY. I love corn, though...

I'm in Indianapolis.... around here, you have to head south when it's time to play (please let it get warm again soon.)

I think we're in range... meet ya at the river boats this summer? I'll buy the pizza!

-Sid

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Originally posted by: petrusbroder
Wow, what a group of TeAm-mates!
BTW - where is Lizardth - or any other female crunchers? :Q

Lizardth has been working her arse off, doing 12-13 hour shifts all this week in getting ready for inventory; worked 19 hours yesterday (the storage that she is asst. manager at was doing inventory that day; the rest of week was prep) and her normal shift is 8 hours. :shocked: And she even brought me food at work when she got off work; I'm so lucky. She got up early today to go to an interview in Austin for another position. She'll be on her neffing tonight most likely! (I'll poke her in the direction of this thread).

 

[TAandy]

ok,
have i offended anyone??

 

[TAandy]

keep them going
good night

 

[IJump]

Originally posted by: TAandy
keep them going
good night

Good night?!? It's only 8:00 here!!

 

[Insidious]

LOL

God only knows what time it on HIS side of the pond.

:laugh:

-Sid

(offended? it depends....... do I get a free :beer: if I say yes?)

 

[caferace]

Originally posted by: IJump

Originally posted by: TAandy
keep them going
good night

Good night?!? It's only 8:00 here!!

The doctors in the white coats say lights out early where TAandy lives.

I blabber about myself anytime, but this is as tidy place as any to summarize. My name is Jim, I'm 45 y.o. and have been married for 7.5 years now. I'm a SQA/C engineer by trade and training , but also have hardcore backup skills and tools for carpentry. That helped in the bubble.

I live in Fair Oaks, Ca. with the missus and the pets. As my name implies, I too (common thread) am a motorcycle nut and semi-retired racer. You're not fully retired until you get rid of the racebike. I've taught and trained people in diverse areas such as Motorcycle Roadracing (duh) to Global Network Design (11 years in telecom) and am currently with a company that manufactures medical networked recording devices. They also nicely double (when under test) as low-power crunching machines. I originally started crunching with RC5-56 (Team Netscape, a past job) and got bored when unemployed and Seti Classic.

I'd visited AT when researching a new comp, and joined the forums leading the TA Dimes effort, though I was quickly sunk when there was a mini-race. Then I found Hot Deals, and I've been incarcerated since. Here. :laugh:

Oh, and I'm a born and raised Californian, rarer than you might think. And I'll be in Indianapolis in September, so ScottSid is buying me a beer.

-jim