introduction ------------ This will be my first phlog entry, I figure it would be best to introduce myself before I get too far. My nick is E-werd, I'm from Pennsylvania: the land of amish, trees, small mountains, and the Pennsylvania Dutch. The name "Pennsylvania Dutch" is kind of a misnomer because, while they are from Pennsylvania they are not descended from the Dutch, but from the Germans-- Deutsch. It turns out the English don't like saying the proper word so we lopped off some letters. They neat people with a neat accent and amazing food. They're out east, though, and I'm from the west. I'm a father, husband, IT professional, and a gamer. I've been playing with computers since the mid-early 90's, from the time I was able to write and spell I was learning the trade. I'm not much of a programmer, I'm capable of writing scripts as I need to and little more. I'm a jack of all trades and master of none. I may not know exactly what to do but I can figure it out. It works for me, but sometimes it sucks having a wide knowledge with very little depth. It's been years since I really made any form of content. If you look hard enough you'll find my name in some Quake mods and maps. I attempted some Quake 3 maps but never released anything. What I would have released was deleted in an accidental drive format. I have the compiled test but not the source so I never went back, too much work was lost and I was completely disheartened. I never wrote much more than a blog post and and some poetry and, I hope, I've already deleted those anyway. Please don't go looking, we all do stupid things when we're young and I was no exception. I've been a part of, and ran, a couple Minecraft servers. I've been part of, and managed, some forums and a forum site--the last bit is still true. It's a reddit clone written in Python on Flask, not very popular but we have a solid core that came over from Voat. I know what you're thinking after reading that, but understand that we didn't like the direction Voat was going and that's part of the reason we moved elsewhere. I won't mention our name directly, you can find us on your own if you're interested. Anyway, the lack of work I've been doing on the internet is what bothers me most. I am a consumer, I add nothing but snarky comments and (hilarious) puns. This is where I want to make a change. I am feeling very unfulfilled lately and the only time I've felt good on the internet was when I was making something and sharing it. I know joining SDF and making a phlog isn't exactly a big step, but it's something; I have to start somewhere. I have some topics and ideas I want to flesh out and get into writing so I suppose I'll start there. I'm coming to realize that I hate the web for what it's become, that's what drove me to gopher. I admit I wasn't really aware of it until I attempted a CTF done by Master Boot Record, a retro-styled electronic music artist, earlier this year. My early days of computing were centered around playing games and making webpages on Tripod in Macromedia Dreamweaver. Gopher was basically dead in the water by the time I was getting around. But I've found it and I love it so far. I want to contribute and hopefully I'll be able to do some good.