Shane Emmons

Programming is my main source of income as well as my primary hobby. That makes me sound pretty one dimensional. There are plenty of other things I'm interested in, including risking my comfortable lack of wetness out on the great lakes in my little dingy, playing guitar, riding bikes with my brother and family, reading books and playing games (board and video).

I picked up Ruby sometime around 2004 but didn't really "get it" until I read why's (poignant) Guide to Ruby. Having recently taken over the maintenance of the money gem, in the summer of 2010, I was looking for formal Ruby training. I happened to stumbled upon Greg's original call for participation in MU's Session 0 and figured, "hey you can't go wrong with free!" I learned a lot during that first session and became MU's first Alumni. But interacting with Greg did more than teach me Ruby; it rekindled my love of learning and teaching.

Soon after my session I began to mentor in other core course, took the alumni teaching course and ultimately became the first alumni staff member in June 2011. After that I co-taught a number of the core courses with Greg and helped where I could with the rest of the organization. With Mendicant's new focus, I will be offering weekly office hours to fellow Rubyists in the #mendicant IRC channel.