12 steps...

[Elias Sinderson]

Hello FoRKers,

    My name is Elias <LastNameOmittedForTheSakeOfMystery>, and I'm a 
lurker. I'm not sure how it all got to this point, but, well, you know 
how it goes... I started reading the FoRK archives this past summer, on 
and off when I should have been working on my thesis, and then I 
subscribed to the list some months after the fact. I meant to introduce 
myself, as others have recently done, but then I kinda figured that I 
was like that guy who just leans against the wall (or the bar, or you) 
quietly listening to the conversations around him... And then it was too 
late - I had become a lurker.

    This afternoon I had a short discussion with Jim 
<http://www.cse.ucsc.edu/%7Eejw> , and he insisted on calling me a 
lurker. Several times, over and over, with no concern for my self 
image... So I guess that it was the experience of being repulsed by my 
own lurkerness, which led me to make this post. Perhaps you should like 
to know a little bit about me? Perhaps not? At the very least this will 
be archived so that I can be denied one or more jobs in the future... ;-)

    I'm a third year graduate student at UCSC in the CS department 
<http://www.cse.ucsc.edu/> . I migrated here after spending three years 
or so at Evergreen <http://www.evergreen.edu/> and six months at OGI 
<http://www.cse.ogi.edu/> working as a research assistant to finish my 
degree. I had friends in Santa Cruz, and  wanted to establish residency 
in California before applying to grad. school. So I moved down here and 
got a job in the valley, working as a systems engineer for the 
all-but-defunct Globalstar <http://www.globalstar.com/> L.P. Currently 
I'm paying my rent, etc. working as a TA on campus and at NASA's Ames 
Research Center in the computational sciences division.

    If you're still reading I should tell you something about what 
little personal life I have. I'm a freak for music - most genres - and I 
collect rocks/gems/minerals. And books. I like hiking, biking, kayaking, 
and rock climbing. This past summer I spent far too much time teaching 
myself about networking, Apache, linux system administration, etc. when 
I should have been hacking together a system for my thesis work. Such is 
life. Now I spend far too much time working to worry about it. I let off 
steam once in a while by dancing the night away in various San Francisco 
clubs, including Zawinski <http://www.jwz.org/> 's <http://www.jwz.org/> 
DNA Lounge <http://www.dnalounge.com/> (or others when friends of mine 
are spinning). I alternately regret and then don't regret cutting my 
teeth in dirty midwest warehouses circa 1990 until I moved to Washington 
for college. But I digress...

    More to come, I'll not to be such a lurker in the future.


    _E_