Maximum PC

SpotLight on whathuhitwasntme

This SpotLight was for a Summer to Remember entry

whathuhitwasntme started folding on 4/7/09
He has 176,072 points
ppd 4,282

Lets meet whathuhitwasntme...............

Where do you call home these days?


I live in LaBelle,Florida. It's between the beaches and the big lake you see on the weather map down near the bottom of the state.
The winter time here is absolutely chamber of commerce weather. You can not find a better place to watch it snow up north! I have moved around the US

When I was in my 20's, I drove a big rig truck for an amazing 6 months but gave it up due to not getting home to my kids often enough. However, the six months I was doing it, I got to go to all 48 of the lower US of A. I really can say I have been there for almost anyplace in America.

I grew up here. Went to school from kindergarten to graduation 12 years later.
Joined the Marine Corps, got hurt a few years later. Took a medical discharge.

Moved away, came back moved a few more times, and somehow ended up back where I started. Where I go from here, well.....trying to get my 2 kids thru school now. They are my daughter 12 (about to be 13) and my son just turned 10.
I am a single dad as many of you here already know from the irc chat. Just getting by day by day.


What got you started folding?

What got me started.

Odd, I built this current pc a few months ago. I used a radeon 4850 and it came bundled with the FAH software. I ignored it for a while. Then the Chimp Challenge post in the main forum was put up. I was looking for something I could do at home in my "free" time that was what I mistakenly thought a cheap hobby!

Oh man, was I wrong. Folding has been equated to crack, I do not think crack is this addictive. However I have no personal experience on that

I have since changed my video card out to a more folding friendly card, a GEFORCE 9800 GT. I run that and a vmware client of Ubuntu 8.04 folding in virtual linux. I am already shopping for a quad processor now! My current cpu is a core 2 duo E8500 3.16 ghz. More than enough for any real work but apparently if I had a core 2 quad proc it would be able to run another instance of vmware and another client on a second virtual machine for more POINTS PER DAY!

I do not have a family member directly related by any of the folding diseases we are striving to cure, but you know karma is funny. I help because I can, after all it may be my family it saves one day after all.


Where are you employed?

I work for Road and Bridge Dept here for the county. I have been there for 5 years. I actually quit a better paying job at the time to take this one.

I put in many years working jobs that had zero plans for later in life. I decided it was time to make the move to a job that had a retirement plan, and oh I don't know a few paid days off to! My work there varies from day to day. It's basically a maintenance set up, we try to keep the roads up and the drainage ditches clear, it rains a bit here.

We, are the guys that go out in the hurricane. We are the guys that clear the road for the first responders. EMS, Fire, Police, they don't roll when the wind is over 45 mph.

Last year, I was out in 117 mph clearing a felled oak tree so fire and rescue would be able to get threw later. There is zero glamor in this job.

We don't get shiny badges or cars with sirens an lights, ok we get lights but they are yellow and get little respect. However, being from here, I take pride in the fact that my "yard" is several million acres wide, and we get the best toys to dig in the dirt with. What kid hasn't wanted to dig with a 6 yard bucket on a John Deere track hoe? So, it's got it a few perks.



What other hobbies or interests do you pursue when not folding?

Me, and my 2 kids last sail boat trip to the islands about 3 years ago:



My work truck:



Thats a F 550 with a 500 gallon spray tank on the back. 4x4 in case you wondered. Yeah, its a beast.

This is what happened at work when they hired the first of many women to arrive later:



She never even made it out of the parking spot!

This is my partner Johnny B bad. He is a real character. 69 and still working. I thought I knew about bad attitudes until he showed me what he thought about folks that wont work.




All that rain makes a few of these:




Other than folding and my kids I have a garden. 3 dogs an old truck and a house that will always need something fixed on it. I have a few cat's to add to the rest of the madness that is my life.



How did you learn about computers?

Wow, this is where you fire up the way way back machine.
We had PONG the first time. An atari 2600, and my dad was really into computers back in the 80's. We had a commodore 64 on line to compuserve in 1984. PRE WWW

It had a 200 kbs baud rate external modem that plugged into the back of it. The floppy drive was the size of a shoe box for a mans shoes and weighed 30 pounds. We "modded" it to add an external heat sinc because it ran hot!!! Green screen monitor and all. So, I have been around computers since I was 14 years old. Now, remember this is the year MTV debut and it still played MUSIC!

It's been a really long trip to this place. I took a few classes back in high school. I learned to code in basic and dos 2.0 There was no windows 3.1 yet. Floppy discs really were floppy. I used a hole punch on them to notch out the side an make them double sided, a hardware hack! For double space storage.

My first hard drive was 20 MB. I had a Tandy trs 1000. A 286 IBM clone. DOS 6.0 got taken to court by "STACKER" for using the software to double space the data on the drive an double the storage from 20 to 40 mb! Stacker won, and we were sent a new copy of dos 6.1 with out the stacker software, yeah ok I promise to NOT use 6.0.

Flash forward to 1998. I purchased my last store bought pc. It was K6 II 333 mhz AMD. I paid the local guy 1300 bucks for it. It was sporting windows 98 . A 14" color monitor, and craptastic speakers. It was an eye opening experience. I vowed that I would build my own from that point on. I have built many since that point in time, each better than the last.



What hardware are you currently running?

Ah the machine dujor:

Well, naturally its home built.
Suppose the basics:

Ultra grid case, basic black box with lots of room an tool less drive bays.
Motherboard is a MSI P45 Neo 3 too bad its only got one pci e slot on it, it has to go!

CPU: E8500 3.16 hgz core 2 duo
ram: corsair ddr2 pc 6400 (800 mhz) as of rite now I have 3x 2gb sticks in there took number 4 out it got screwy with 4 sticks populated go figure
vid card: BFG geforce 260 core 216 not over clocked or anything special
dvd rom is a SATA sony DVD +/- RW 22x basic drive again plain
thermaltake 500 watt psu, cooler master V 8 cpu cooler(awesome device)

That's pretty much it for inside the case.
I have dual flat panel monitors
1. acer 22" x223w wide panel great colors and resolution in my opinion but I am a savage and uneducated.

2. HP 20" flat panel, was given to me when my mom got it off a auction web site thought she won a flat panel tv, go figure.

Logitech x530 speakers 5.1 surround sound
and a Microsoft wireless keyboard an mouse.

Do you build your own computers today?

Yeah, you think?


Do you overclock any machines?

NO, not really. I am usually more into upgrades than tweakin every last drop out of them.



What are the main things you use your computers for today?

FOLDING, FOLDING FOLDING, mIRC, email, media player and host for my home xbox 360 files to network off of



What Broadband provider do you use - are you happy with their service?

Embarq DSL
NO, I am not happy. I had 6mb down, they over sold the area, and cut me back to 3mb down! That's just not rite.

What do you like most about Folding and the MaximumPC forum?


Well the best part has to be the willingness of the team to help a new guy set up his gear. There are sooooo many ways to get it wrong, I oughta know I think I created 16 more ways to get it wrong when I started. But the team generally sticks with you and holds your hand as much as needed.

After that, though you better be ready to return the favor when the next batch of new guys shows up.

What are your future folding plans?

Me, personally 1 million points before the next chimp challenge.
Telling Chumly to stuff it, I do rate an opinion about folding on the team, he thinks its funny so you can include that.

I will certainly be upgrading my equipment and adding more as I can afford it. After all, this hobby ain't cheap!

Thanks for a great SpotLight
We will see below if Clumly thinks it's funny so I can include that.
I missed seeing some pictures of the many pets.
It's not too late

He has gotten very busy with preparations for a hurricane.
We will hope for a pet update in a week or two.

Nice spotlight You seem to have a pretty cool job

Enjoyed learning more about you and your children. You prob help clear out gators too if they cause trouble in the drainage ditches. We have em here too but I don't fool with them.

Gator's
well they are a self solving problem
and delicious when cooked properly
it more or less equates to somebody leaving a plate of fried chicken in the way, some body eats it, no more problem!

I will have to get the kid to round up some pet pictures. It seems I just got 2 more when my ex moved back to her parents in Georgia. I am not one to abandon critters. My dad taught me when I was a kid, that the animals didnt ask you to domesticate them. They were fine until man screwed up the deal and now it's up to us to take care of them. They are a life long commitment and I take it very seriously regardless of the hardship it brings to my grocery budget!

Tell your daughter that 8th grade is hard. It is.

LOL...Haven't seen ya on IRC in a while WhatHuh! Get back in there more often ya freak-cake.

Ya, I think that "stuff it" is cool, and has some backstory of sorts. This is my side of that short story: Someone said they shouldn't throw down, I chuckled a bit, told him to put up or shut up, and will be more than happy to see "Shove it Chumly!" at the million makr. I think he was being kind in saying "stuff it"

So ya, it's a family thing. If I could set in a dunk tank in order to have fun in the sake of folding, I think we're all in on that! Being a good folder and reaching one million pts is just a matter of time with this team. So if nothing else, plop me up in that cage and start winging your best pitches. I'm just pondering the next step...does top 500 nudges have to entail cross dressing?

WhatHuh is a working man...a working father...and still finds a way to fold for us the best he knows how without missing a beat in his real life. Thanks for all of that dude!

For those that don't know, our official chatroom is Maximum PC titled, but it should be called 11108 IRC room. We've got Toidi building a big i7/275 x2 machine this weekend. Several of us have put that into our schedule to see this thing start chewing up 1's and 0's for 1108. At any given time, it erupts into folding chat...or just about anything else in the absence of folding.

Clumly...that's funny too! Don't edit it...leave it up

whathuhitwasntme, thanks for doing a spotlight an giving us an insite on your life.
It is always an extra bonus for me to see a fellow Floridian show that this state is home to many fine people. I completely agree about the weather comment. There are so many months of fine weather that overshadow the few months of brutal heat and humidity. I have lived here since the late 80's and I never plan on leaving.

There is no doubt that folding is very addictive and as soon as you finish a build and start seeing those extra points being added you start to think about the next one.

Thanks again for the peek into your life, you have many things to be very proud of.