proper introductions!

Well, I've been here for three weeks now, I guess I'll say it officially: hi?

I'm Tom! Or lerkfrend, or lerkfeend, or Lerk, or any sort of interaction on noise.cash, you get the idea.

I stumbled into the crypto world almost four months ago. I can barely believe it, it seems like so long ago. The Brave browser was my introduction, then Coinbase (wow), then brief forays into Ethereum, then Publish0x, and now here, and by that I mean the dotcash/BCH community.

Can you imagine that just months ago I knew literally nothing about BCH? This is an absurd idea to me, but it is true. Did you know there are other crypto spaces out there that aren't awesome, that aren't committed and engaging, that are full of scams and lies?

But anyway, this article is supposed to be about me. I live on the west coast of the United States, where it rains a lot and there are a lot of tall evergreen trees. I have a wonderful wife and three fur babies:

• a Shiba Inu / black Labrador mix doggo named Leela, after the Futurama character (yes, she's part Doge)

• a fat black cat named Salem, after Sabrina the Teenage Witch's cat

• a skinny little gray firecracker of a cat named Freya, after the Norse goddess

They are truly my children. We adopted Leela from a person that could no longer take care of her and she is the sweetest dog I have ever known. Salem and Freya are siblings that we fostered when they were just weeks old. We bottle fed them four times a day for just one week. We bonded with them so strongly. They became what is known in the animal fostering community as "foster fails," we just could not give them away! They are too precious!

So crypto and animals? That's it? That's your life, lerk?

I like lots of things, okay! Just because I've looked like an absolute noise.cash degenerate doesn't mean I have no other interests. But it's funny. I started watching BTCUSD charts in December and it was...exhilarating. That sounds weird, let me explain. I've always liked math, especially math that makes my brain hurt. I feel most like I'm learning when I can't quite grasp a subject but my brains insists on more, More, MORE! I was studying candlesticks, watching BTC's ATH after ATH and I wasn't excited about the price as much as the social event that was unfolding. I knew that there were methods and techniques for analyzing what the chart was saying, a financial sector back-end rich with mathematics, but at the same time the numbers were so many individuals, trying to do the same as me, watching a chart or reading headlines, gauging and analyzing markets as I was trying to do.

I realized that I cared about crypto. I wanted it to succeed.

At the time, I was all for BTC. The big name with all the branding and media attention. I kept my wife up to date on its price. 20k, 22k, 24, 27, on and on. She humored me and enjoyed that I was excited. I widened my scope a little bit, started looking into Ethereum. It's not immediately apparent to an outsider but a world computer can be very powerful. Smart contract technology blew me away, but there was an obvious price barrier.

I discovered Helium and felt I had found a project with a simple but powerful use-case. I realized that I could be a relatively early adopter and leapt at the chance to buy an HNT mining hotspot. They have been on back order now for a few months but I have staked my place in line and look to receive it in March. At the time I was making my cost calculations, HNT was trading around $1.40. It's now over $4, so I feel that I made the correct choice. I'll be sure to do some write-ups of my experiences.

Now BCH is fully in my attention. I love read.cash and noise.cash as platforms, as methods for increasing awareness and adoption. I've always wanted to write more and this gives me a great opportunity, and I'm happy to be a part of a community with so many people working hard to make it better.

One of the big things I'm starting to see is how groups and individuals go about making these loose decentralized projects work. Going back to Rick Falkvinge's quasi-satirical Official Statement from the CEO of Bitcoin Cash, this community has made an effort to put the protocol first in its dealings, to come together to build and not tear each other down.

The gate's open, come on in. If you don't like someone or something, you can share your opinion, but the best thing to do is to leave them to themselves. I hope they're here to help BCH, too, after all, and everyone does that differently.

Anyway, I'm really excited to be here, and it's distracting from what this is supposed to be: all about ME! My crypto learning interests are all over the place but right now they include:

• tokenomics and smart contracts

• currency dynamics, money, how and why fiat sucks

• counting in satoshis

• noise.cash as a social platform / growing engagement / turning spammers into good noisers

• Javascript development with mainnet.cash and floweejs (I'm a complete noob here but it's exciting)

I'm currently on a leave of absence which gives me an absurd amount of time to do stupid things. Outside of the crypto sphere, I mostly manage my fur babies, cook mostly-vegan food, read, and watch/play video games. I really enjoy:

• AfreecaTV Starcraft 2 GSL, and by association, the supreme English caster duo of Artosis and Tasteless

• Magic: the Gathering deck-building -- currently focused mostly on meme Commander lists

• League of Legends professional play -- North American teams Team Liquid and Evil Geniuses are my current favorites (though not to win Worlds or anything, lololol)

• Other games include: Stardew Valley, No Man's Sky, Hearthstone, Darkest Dungeon, Dota 2....probably more, my own humble game dev ideas included

I'm currently doing a lot of rereads, mostly theory and fantasy:

• The Gutenberg Galaxy, by Marshall McLuhan

• A Storm of Swords, by George R. R. Martin

• The Society of the Spectacle, by Guy Debord (this has been a constant reference for that last few years)

• Anarchism and other Essays, by Emma Goldman

• The Vlad Taltos series, by Steven Brust

I'm also interested in spiritual and magical practices, as well as "divination" techniques like Tarot and I-Ching. I try (and have failed recently) to do a simple daily Tarot reading in the DailyTarot Chamber on noise.cash. You can drop a post in the Frendzone Chamber if you are interested in a small personal Tarot reading or you have questions for me.

One more thing before I go: I'M REALLY EXCITED TO BE HERE! This platform is connecting the world and helping us share our stories, thoughts and wisdom. We are better for it, so let's keep it going!

Lead photo by cottonbro from Pexels