JoeSeki
My name is Joe Carl, and I'm a 39 year old Electrical Engineer doing mostly software development these days.
I first saw Go when I was 10 years old. My father played the game a few times with his brother, and it looked cool. The board and stones were owned by his brother, and when he moved away, I didn't see it again until I was in College.
I went to The Ohio State University and while in a gaming store, I found a goban, stones, and some basic books by James Davies. I bought them up thinking I'd find someone to play back at the dorms. I was wrong though; no one wanted to learn the game, and since I didn't really know how to play anyway no one wanted to learn from me either :)
So the game went on the shelf until about 1990 when I was working for a government contractor who had internet access. There I found IGS and that was where I learned to play the game. I started out as a 27k player and over the past decade have worked my way up to 2k (recent IGS 3 stone promotion).
I've started my own Go Club http://home.neo.rr.com/cuyahogo in the Akron/Canton Ohio area, [1] and I love introducing the game to anyone interested in learning the game.
My other interests are Origami, Isshinryu Karate, Scuba diving, Diplomacy, and many other things too trivial to mention :)
You can reach me by email (joseph.w.carl.jr@gmail.com)
Joe Carl
In my effort to become better at this game playing a TeachingGame with AvatarDJFlux. Check it out at Teaching Game 67
In a separate, and probably misguided effort to better understand the game, I've tried to come up with an EquivalentGameToGo that might give me insight into the real game
[1] The club website is archived at the given link from 2001 to 2005, becoming a soft redirect by 2004, due to the content having moved to usgo.org/agachapters/cuya. That page was also last archived in 2005. The club does not seem to have been mentioned again after that, until 2013 when it was noted on brianthomas.com as being apparently defunct.