DID ILX ADMINS GET SONNED BY WITE KIDS IN A BULLETIN BOARD CODING BEEF?

What do you consider as your accomplishments up to this point?

I like to call myself a modern-day “renaissance man” because I’m always joining clubs – social, service,
academic – whatever I can get my hands on. And I like to learn and do a little of everything. I even played
the clarinet in band for 7 ½ years.
My biggest accomplishments include getting on the Internet 10 years ago and having the ability to teach
myself any computer language I put myself up to. That and my club experiences allowed me to be
successful in joining the wonderful YaBB team with Zef Hemel and Jeff Lewis 5 years ago.
I’ve also developed a very neat system for my current job. It is written in MS Access (the first large
database I’ve made with it and the first time I’ve experienced Visual Basic). It allows you to put in
production numbers, shipments, inventory, scrap and downtime information, and other things. It then has
all sorts of fancy scripting giving it some intelligence, and you can get reports of anything you want. If only
I could sell it!

Any failures you want to tell us about?

I don’t like to admit to failures! I’d say my biggest failure is letting the YaBB project get so far behind over
the years. It hurts me to see what people think about it today, considering it was one of the greatest
projects on the Internet at one time. But personal life comes first. I guess I’ve “woken up” recently with
regards to YaBB and found more time to devote to it again.

What are your favorite books? Movies? TV shows? Music? Games? Foods? Beverages?

I read like a bookworm when I was young, but I don’t read much any more. A couple good books I’ve read
recently are Good to Great and First, Break All the Rules. Those were required reading in my current job.
They teach a lot about what makes people happy, what people expect in their jobs, and how to run a
great business. Sounds boring, but they’re not bad.
Don’t even get me on the subject of movies or games. I have around 100 DVDs, 30 miscellaneous
consoles’ games, and 30 Xbox games. I am never one for picking favorites! I love a little of everything.
Same goes for food. I eat everything – the first thing on the menu is what I choose. I do have some
favorite shows though: King of Queens, King of the Hill, the Simpsons, American Dad, Everybody Loves
Raymond, the Drew Carey Show, Charmed, Stargate SG-1, South Park, Chappelle’s Show, Family
Guy…. I have way too much music too. I have to listen to it at all times. I like everything – rap, alternative,
rock, hip-hop, techno, swing…. Some of my favorites are Linkin Park, Lil’ Jon, Mike Jones, 3 Doors Down,
Blink 182, Eminem, 50 Cent, Deftones, Korn, Usher, Nelly, Simple Plan, and Good Charlotte.

What do you do for fun and relaxation?

Woe is the working life. I don’t get to that often. I spend my evenings working on YaBB and running my
personal business, Xnull Internet Media, Inc. (XIMinc). That’s often fun, but not always.
I do try to turn on the T.V. now and then. On a rare occasion, I’ll go out to the swimming pool. On the
weekend, I devote my time to my girlfriend (we live 2 hours apart). We’ll rollerblade, picnic, take a walk,
go bowling, play Xbox, go camping or hiking, whatever floats our boat. I’m a “people-watcher” so I go to
malls a lot and window shop to see what new things exist, what I can spend money on, and what type of
people there are in the world. You can see every walk of life in a mall. I also like to do things I’ve never
done before – I recently parasailed over the Atlantic, camped in the mountains, and rode the “sky flier” (a
free fall rope swing up a few hundred feet).

What is the significance of your username, crackers8?

Ah, I knew that was lurking in your head! Until college, few people called me by a nickname. A best friend
called me "Crackers" randomly a few times in Junior High School. About that time, I got introduced to the
Internet, so I decided it was a great Internet handle. Since then, I've stuck to it. I put an "8" on the end
because Crackers (and variants) is usually taken. Sometimes it's crackers888, crackers_8, or Krackers8.
I always use the same number now, because I can reverse it and say, "I ate crackers!" And no, it has
nothing to do with "being a cracker."
moderation of the Community forum, recruiting team members, or helping with support. Although
developers come and go, we’ve been blessed with them having the ability to democratically choose good
features to implement and fix bugs that have been reported quite quickly. We use CVS for our code
repository, so this makes things pretty easy for them I think.