User:Gameforge

I live in the United States.

Interests

Computers

I am a professional software engineer, a craft I began pursuing in the early 1990s. In 1996 I began using Red Hat Linux 4.1 as a desktop operating system, and by the early 2000s Linux became my primary desktop operating system. Today it is my exclusive OS choice. My preferred desktop environment has been KDE since before the 2.x release. I am also a fan of System76 computers.

Music

I am an avid fan of the guitar, especially the electric guitar. I love nostalgic analog gear including vacuum tube-driven amplifiers and other vintage effect circuits. I love playing the blues and classic rock, but also enjoy hair metal guitar solos, classical music (as well as neoclassical electric guitar), grunge/indie rock, reggae, Sublime, and many other genres/sounds. I also love to play early 90s grunge, because it's easy but powerful.

My all-time favorite guitarist is Stevie Ray Vaughan, though I greatly enjoy listening to "hot" blues music from artists like Muddy Waters, Lightnin' Hopkins, Jimi Hendrix and Buddy Guy. I am also inspired by terrific mainstream songwriters and melody makers from the latter half of the 20th century (such as Kurt Cobain and Robert Plant).

Electronics

Although not very accomplished, I enjoy fiddling with breadboards and making little gadgets out of microchips / microcontrollers and discrete components. I've built a number of guitar effect pedals, including my own designs and a number of clones. My favorite has been an analog chorus based on a heavily modified Boss CE-2 circuit.

Aviation

I love learning about aviation and using flight simulator software. I would one day like to hold a private pilot's license.

Volcanoes

I am fascinated by volcanoes, and regularly keep track of online seismographs and camera streams of active volcanoes such as Mount Saint Helens.

Cars

I enjoy mechanical things and working on cars. I have built a somewhat functional home shop and own enough tools and computer equipment to work on almost any car.

Swimming Pools

I spent a number of years working as a local swimming pool and spa technician. I am versed in water chemistry and filtration, and have serviced/worked on over 100 individual swimming pool or spa systems spanning sub-500 gallon hot tubs to 250,000+ gallon competition pools.

If you want a swimming pool, do yourself a favor and call your local pool cleaning service and ask them what kind of pool to build and what kind of equipment to use. Do not use what pool builders recommend!!

Articles on Wikipedia

These are articles I have contributed to or created:

• Continental Airlines Flight 1404
• Blues Junior
• Speaker grille