Hello World?

If all went according to plan, I somehow or another managed to make myself onto the Planet Ubuntu webpage. Excellent! If not, then I fail at v i+ bzr + cp/mv commands. The first two are new technologies I’ve recently started using, and the last two reflect my recent obsession with dropping away from a GUI into a shell and really exploring the depth and power of the Linux kernel. I am madly in love.

I would like to briefly introduce myself. I have been using Ubuntu Linux since December 2006 when my brother (more on him later) came home and more or less told me outright that Windows was banned in our household. My Win(ironic name, i think)dows partition breaking helped move things along. I became involved with the Ubuntu-Chicago group, as well as the local CHIGLUG group, and switch schools to a private technical institution where I am pursuing a B.S. in Political Science, and a minor in Computer Science. I also work by day at a company handling their computer systems, uploading content to the website, mapping network drives, and other such small tasks. In the long term, I hope to graduate with a solid understanding of societies and the political forces surrounding them (influencing policy is one area I am particularly interested in), as well as a technical understanding of the technologies which surround social change, as a precursor to my goal of pursuing a degree in law. With that in mind, I want to work with OSS companies and softwares, to better mankind through work in Intellectual Property law.

On my spare time I listen to music very loudly (punk, hip hop, rap, classical/romanticist, avant jazz, what I call “radio rock” and most call alternative rock, metal of course, hardcore, etc.) and I love to skateboard, take photos, read, explore the city with my best friends, and play with my dog. Oh, and my family has hosted over 15+ exchange students in the past few years, so my house is always packed.

I am actively involved in the LoCo project side of the Ubuntu community, as the lead contact for the Ubuntu-Chicago Team, and I try to talk to the US team and general LoCo team as much as possible. As such, I have many many people I am indebted to for all the time they’ve put up with me as I learned my way around the community and the CoC as well as the technology in general. You will notice how much time I spend on IRC when I refer to people by their online nicks, not their real names xD . I hope I don’t offend anyone by forgetting them and they are as follows, with explanations:

Effiejayx my brother down South for keeping me up to date on the S.American news
Tyche a great guy all around from Arizona
Greg G keeping Michigan strong
John C what more can I say?
JJesse an all around great Kubuntu and doc person
Jcastro for helping launch the midwest Quad LoCo team
Jucato for hanging out with me in #kubuntu
Manchicken who rants about free software for hours on end
boredandblogging (who has a better online handle than myself… well no, but close )
Fransisco Athens for letting me SSH into his box for IRC
Jim Campbell an all around solid guy who deserves to be on this planet more than I do.
Kevin Harris for attempting me to switch to Foresight for hours on end (and hasn’t managed it yet!)

I have two more people I want to thank for putting up with me. They are Freddy Martinez, my twin brother and fellow Ubuntu member, and Richard Johnson, KDE/Kubuntu whiz and the best LoCo leader I could try to replace. You read it first here people: twin Ubuntu developers from Chicago invade your Planet and free your computers! A million thanks to Richard for putting up with both of us and making it happen.

-Eddie M. signing off.

ps. I sure hope this works, or else my super long blog post (with too many annoying links!) was a total waste of time.