Although I have been a reader of IAOFM for quite some time, I only started commenting there a few months ago. As such, I have yet to get to know many of the IAOFM commenters that I hope will migrate here (and newcomers in general) due to a lack of history. So I thought I try to correct this by first offering up my story.
As many of you know, I’m the technical director at Over The Cap, the best resource for NFL contract and salary information that’s available to the general public. In particular, you may know me as “the (new) compensatory draft pick projection guy“. I’m a web developer by trade, and I noticed that Jason Fitzgerald was doing something special that I could help him out on. I first built OTC’s salary cap calculator, and that led to revamping the entire site’s frontend and backend operations. Jason and I both have some ideas for the future, so stay tuned on that front!
I’ve lived in Boise for almost my whole life (went to college in Portland for four years). As far as sports goes, it is a college football town first and foremost with the blue turf, and as a result of that plus being one of the most isolated top 100 metros in the country, there is no natural affinity for any professional sports teams. Being part of the Northwest, Seattle teams tend to get the edge, but it by no means a substantial edge. For whatever childhood reason in the early 1990s, I started to favor the Broncos (like most, John Elway was a major attraction) and just ran with it from there. I was rewarded with two Super Bowls as a teenager, I took a break from following them when I was in college with so much else to do and learn about, and then rekindled my fandom after finishing college.
I’ve commented on a pseudonymous basis on several Broncos websites in the past, but have never felt particularly comfortable in being a primary contributor in any location. That changed once I started helping out OTC, and once I got to know Doug at OTC a bit better through that work I definitely felt more at home at IAOFM. It still feels a bit weird to be putting commentary to my actual name, but it’s a shell that I should probably break out of a little bit.
So there’s a little bit of my background. How about the rest of you?