Two years ago, at the end of high school, I appeared to most as a stereotypical, midwestern, suburban, teenage pupil. My GPA was well over 4.0, I was taking 5 AP courses, I'd just scored a 35 on my ACT and a 2240/1500 on the SAT. I was the founder of a robotics club and officer in several more. I was hardly nerdy. Perhaps geeky was a better word. My decent looks, charisma, and probably unwarranted confidence meant I got along with everyone, including the 'popular kids' and mentored a lot the younger 'not-so-popular' ones. Things were looking up. I applied to Harvard, MIT, Stanford, etc. Competition is tough these days, so I honestly wasn't surprised to not be accepted. I went to the nearby big state University.

Perhaps because of the drudgery of this environment, or (more likely) because of the hatred of arbitrariness and general behavioral oddities that I share with many hacker-types, I did not thrive academically in this environment. In short, I fucked up and dropped out.

In the third grade, I was the one setting up the school's computers. Freshman year of high school, a friend introduced me to Linux. With the previously mentioned robotics club, I was introduced to programming (Java, bleh). Like many others, I got caught up in the big Ruby on Rails growth around 2005ish. My first year of college, I worked as a sysadmin under some very skilled, if old-school, folks. I spent last Summer traveling the world and thinking hard. Eventually I took another job as a Django web developer. I went to PyCon this year and it was heavenly.

I have an engineer's brain, but a romantic poet's heart. I'm not religious in any way. In fact, I'm a devout rationalist. As such, it's sometimes hard for me to find motivation in anything other than learning cool stuff and, more commonly, making other people happy. Even in development or entrepreneurship, my kick comes almost exclusively from sitting down next to a user and just seeing the glint in his or her eye as I ask "If you could have this site/process/system/experience be any way you wanted it to be, what would you do?". Most people are so used to annoying, convoluted user experiences and it honestly fucking kills me. Anyway, that's how I operate.

I want to move to the bay area. Partly because I have good friends from my worldwide trip there. Partly because my older, more successful, managerial-type sister is soon moving there to get into VC. Mostly because there's no hope of anything other than a dead-end corporate sysadmin job where I'm from. I want to build awesome things that help people in ways they didn't even know they could be helped. I want to dump all my time into something just so the occasional person says, "Oh man, you built blahblahblah. Dude. Thanks. Good job." and then make it a thousand times better.

I'm young, debtless, and, unlike the rest of my family, I have no real interest in material things. All I want is a safe place to live, the ability to buy groceries to cook awesome food with, and the occasional cool gadget or book. Friends and knowledge provide me with more happiness than a shopping spree ever could.

So my question is: Are there any startups or hopeful founders that would like to kick ass together in SF? I will pour everything I have into building something awesome that makes the lives of others even slightly better. I love the idea living in the same place as my teammates, always bouncing ideas off of each other, learning new things, and creating something great. If you or your startup can provide me with a room/couch or a fair enough wage that I can sleep, eat, and slowly save up a bit to go back to school, these are the technical skills I can contribute: * Linux/Windows/Mac proficiency and administration * Familiarity with C++, Ruby, Python, Java, PHP, HTML, CSS, Javascript (incl but not limited to jQuery) * Spent some time learning Actionscript (meh) and Objective-C (would like to do more with iOS if given opportunity) * Decent design eye and familiarity with Adobe CS * Most importantly, I know how to learn new things stupidly fast. I'm of at least average intelligence (see test scores above), and simply don't hit conceptual or mental barriers. I feel like this is pretty useful. If I'm not sufficiently good at something above now, I can be within a week or two.

I'm also great with nontechnical things. My writing skills shouldn't be lacking. My mother, a legal writing professor, made sure of that. Perhaps more than anything else, I'm good with people. I have a history in sales. I'm straightforward, honest, and a great listener (giving a damn about others helps). People respect me because I respect them. I take constructive criticism with enthusiasm, and dish it out with understanding and tact. Public speaking has never been a problem with me. I have a lot to say, and I know how to say it.

I think I can significantly help some young startup or group of people with high aspirations. I'm probably more qualified on paper to do technical things, but I'd like to help all over the place. I want to add features, talk to users, schmooz investors, and tell others how fucking awesome what I'm working on is, and I want to make sure it really is that excellent.

So. Does this sound appealing to anyone? Would anyone just like to tell me how crazy I am?

Go for it.