[LandShark]

This is the 33th in the series of T32 Spotlights!! I'll try my best to keep this Spotlight as regular post as possible as long as the nominations keep coming in!! So, keep sending me the nomination guys/gals!!!

For how to go about nominating a fellow folder, please go to THIS THREAD, or better yet, you can PM me directly. To see the ever growing list of who has been interviewed and the expected date of the next spotlight, please go to THIS THREAD.

Note!! Come on guys/gals!! I haven't got any nomination for awhile (I pretty much nominate them all myself )!! And as the rate of the Spotlight that I'm posting (once a week), we will be ran out of Spotlight in about 2 months!! Sooo, if there's anyone you want to know more but haven't seen them "Spotlighted" yet, shot me a PM!!

Also, for any of the suggestions/questions/answers/etc. that you would like to see from other member, please PM me too!!

Now please give a warm welcome to..........................

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garynator
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When did you join the Team? Approximate date is ok if you don't know the specific date.

10.19.04 under the username “the_garynator” which I folded for up to about 16700 points. I then started folding_monkeys around 02.02.05. I got a few of my friends to join and borged a lot of comps and managed to get our average ppd up to around 2300. A few of the original members were:
Myself
Kyle aka BubbaTheHut (doesn’t really use the boards much)
Josh(isn’t a member of ocforums)
And Stratcatprowlin (who left us to start his own team and later joined F(oc)ld)
We started loosing borgs and a few of our dedicated machines went down permanently due to hardware failure, strat left us and between myself and a few random borgs we kept folding_monkeys alive @ about 500-600ppd. Recently I was able to get a pretty massive borg, and got a few members back/recruited a few new members, and we’re currently on a huge rise… ATM we’re at about 4-5000 average ppd on extremeoverclockers.com. I believe we’ll be jumping up to a ridiculously high ppd pretty soon (probably by the time this gets posted) because of an up and coming race to 500,000 points with a team of monkeys from Maximum PC Magazine’s folding team.

If there was something recent that you did that you wanted your fellow team members to know about, what would it be?

I recently I started college, and I’ve got about half of my associates degree under my belt from transfer credits from programming in the Air Force. I’m also working “part-time” (more like full time hours) as a PC Technician at Circuit City. This gives me very little time to myself, so I’m sorry guys, I’ll be more active as soon as everything slows down.

What is your EOC (extremeoverclockers) stats link?

Link

You do not have to give specifics (address), but what State do you live in, and if you don't mind telling, what town?

I live in Neenah, Wisconsin. Right near Highway 41, so if there are any Wisconsin overclockers that want to hang out sometime or join forces with the folding_monkeys, shoot me a pm!

How did you initially hear about F@H?

I originally started SETI@home because I was trying to figure out something to do with my idle computer, I kind of got into that and after trying to get my friends to do it, they turned against me and preached folding…after about a month or so I gave in and switched to folding after seeing the status of the SETI project (at the time it looked as if it was almost over). So I started folding and later joined forces with those friends and created folding_monkeys. And the rest is history.

After starting, why do you continue to Fold?

Competition was 50% of the reason, and the other 50% was knowing that it was going to a good cause. It also gave my lazy computer something to do other than the occasional batch of video encoding.

What do you do for a living?

I am currently a programming student at the local technical college and working part-time at Circuit City as a PC Technician.

What do you do for fun?

I love working on my car, whether it be making her go faster (this has been pretty much put on hold for the time being due to lack of funds) or putzin’ around with my stereo system. I recently decided to get back into competitions (such as DBDrag and USACI) and picked up two 12” Earthquake DBX-R’s and an Earthquake PHD2000 competition amp (which I paid less than half of the MSRP and found out that it bench-tested at a true 1000 continuous watts at 1 ohm). I also enjoy street racing, however, since moving back from Omaha I haven’t due to the fact that next to no one in the area race. So I supplement that with driving fast (don’t worry, I’m not one of those a** hats that weaves in and out through rush hour traffic on the highway at 100+ mph. I only go fast if it is not endangering anyone else. If someone gets in my way I slow down and wait until they clear out. So overall I’m very courteous even if I’m going fast, because I’m in the wrong and I’m not going to act like I’m right. So now that we’ve got that explained, lets get onto the rest lol)
I thoroughly enjoy working on my computer. I’m a HUGE hardware geek so working on it hardware wise is my biggest love. I also program using C++, VB.Net 2003, and Java. I do a bit of web development in my free-time too, such as the folding_monkeys official website which I haven’t gotten time to work-on/ finish for the last couple of months, but it will be up soon. Most of my little bits of free time are used up browsing/posting on the forums, which I enjoy obviously. I game from time to time also, however, I haven’t very recently because of time constraints. When I do go on a gaming kick I enjoy RTS’s, FPS’s, and RPG’s. Some of the games that I play are Counterstrike: Source, Rise of Nations, Age of Empires, Oblivion, Starcraft, Need for Speed Underground, Quake 4, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, among many others.
As nearly everyone else, I also enjoy partying occasionally.

Is there anything special you do in your spare time that you really enjoy?

Probably mostly oversee folding_monkeys and make mad postz0rz on ocforums . Everything listed above too.

Time to spill your guts. What are the stats of your main folding rig? Why is it your fave? What all do you use the rig for?

My main rig’s specs are not really worth mentioning right now as I’ve had about 5 different mobo/cpu combos in the past few months or so.

But here’s what’s in the works right now (sorry for the abnormally long list :P). This could change by the time it gets posted seeing as my hardware changes as much as you change your clothes.
- Main Specs:
o 2.4b (533mHz FSB) Pentium 4 – Compliments of Jeremy (sno.lcn)
o Abit BH7 845pe motherboard (a legend )
o 1.7+ Terabytes of Storage space:
 300GB Seagate – TV Storage – Full
 300GB Seagate – Either TV/Movie Storage – Empty for now
 160GB Seagates – Games and Programs – Full[/i][/b]
 160GB Seagate – File Drive (pictarz, mp3’s, misc. videos, etc) - Full
 80GB WD (the mighty 800jb) – Backup Drive for critical files that I can not get back if lost such as my digital pictures.
 250GB WD – Either TV/Movie Storage – Empty for now
 250GB Maxtor – Divx Movies - Full
 200GB WD – Divx Movies – Nearly Full
 40GB Seagate – OS Testing drive for Gentoo, Borgix (when I get it ), etc.
o WD740GD 74GB Raptor – for windoze yo
o 1GB (2x 512mb) Geil Golden Dragon DDR 400
- Power
o 430w Aspire
o Either a 330w TruePower or 380w TruePower
- Case
o Heavily Modded AT server tower
o semi-complete Mod List:
 AT to ATX Mobo conversion
 AT to Dual ATX PSU conversion (only one at this exact moment, but will be dremeling out another mount within a couple days)
 Dual front intake LED fans with “mudflap girl” grills
 Single 120mm top blow-hole for 77 bonniville HC (old w/c)
 Side-Panel Mod (one-piece cover converted into 3 piece)
 Partially completed window mod (no plexi behind it)
 Custom Paint (which is in the process of being sanded down for a new Gloss black one)
o 2ft. 2inches tall
o 9 internal 3 ½ bays
o 1 external 3 ½ bay
o 3 external 5 ¼ bays
- HDD controllers
o Onboard dual header IDE controller duh
o 1x Cheap Rosewill dual IDE header Raid controller
o 1x Cheap/Generic IDE/Sata controller; 1x IDE header and 2x Sata headers
- Haupage PVR-150 TV-Tuner/Capture card w/ built-in Hardware MPEG encoder
- Video
o geForce 4 mx420 PCI video card - runs my second monitor
o Sapphire 9800xt (luke-warm performance at best these days ) – Runs my Main Monitor and TV.
o Primary Monitor - 19” Philips CRT Monitor @ 1152x864 100hz (1920x1440 max res…friggin’ sick d00d!)
o Secondary Monitor - 17” Gateway Trinitron @ 1152x864 85hz
o Crappy 19” TV
- Cooling:
o Zalman CNPS-7700 120mm Flower HSF
- Sound
o Logitec Z-680’s
 Subwoofer mod

Well, now that you know the specs it’ll be my favorite because it’s got all my good parts in it and, with the 2.4 oc’d a crap ton, will be pretty fast too. I will use it, as I do my current comp., mostly for programming, web development, downloading and web surfing. I also go on gaming spurts, which, currently I’m not in.

I’ve also got a Pentium D 930 on its way, but will have to wait until I get paid to get a motherboard for it.

Do you have a Borg-Farm? If so, how many computers, and what are they? (CPU, RAM)

Not anymore, unfortunately. Up until recently I had about 30-35 computers borged at work. I also have the hardware to do a borg farm, however, due to circumstances I am unable to have them running so I am going to send them to sno.lcn so he can get them online.

What are your future goals? What do you most want to accomplish with your life?

Well, I’ve currently got too many options to decide on at this point, but my end goal is to own a business, whether on my own or with a partner, get married, get rich, own a huge folding farm, and own a lot of sweet Nissans. I’d also like to retire early. We can all dream can’t we?

If there is something you want to tell the team, then spill your guts! What have I missed in my questions that could help the team learn more about you and who you are?

Folding_monkeys need you! If you’d like to be part of a great sub-team, shoot me a pm or email me at thegarynator@gmail.com .
Folding_monkeys official website is still under construction, but here is a link anyway.
Folding_monkeys official ocforums thread can be found here.

Upgrade plans:
- Pentium D 930 – on it’s way
- Some type of cross-over board, I do not currently have the money to get these parts, DDR2 and a PCI-E video card. So I plan on getting something like the Asrock (assuming it overclocks enough) 755Dual-880Pro so that I can upgrade the RAM/Video card separately at my convenience. Than, after I upgrade those two, pick up a good motherboard.

Note: Gary, I've never got the pics you've said you gonna send to me. So, may be you could post it your own in here??

[sno.lcn]

Nice to know some more about ya gary!
...still waiting on those parts tho...

[Macaholic]

Nice to know more about the top banana! I'm going ape over this spotlight! Pleasure to learn more about you!

[Oric]

It's always good to know more about the mighty monkey commander.

[TollhouseFrank]

woot! Monkey see, monkey do!

Gary, lemme know in the future if ya have another competition, and i'll throw my rigs back towards ya for the competition again.

[LandShark]

a little bump for the spotlight before the next victim, *cough cough* member's spotlight is up.

[harlam357]

Nice to meet ya gary!

...and thanks for the bump LS. I would've missed this otherwise.

[ihrsetrdr]

ya, good thing this thread got bumped...i missed it somehow.

Nice to know more about you Gary!

[dz_jad]

Its good to know ya more. Its always neat to know what people do outside the computer.

[pscout]

Good to meet you some more Gary
Great job with the monkeys!

Get those monkey's some more bananas ... i am still widening the gap

Fold on

[the garynator]

Thanks guys, sorry I haven't replied sooner, It's been a hell of a summer...I've only had about an hour in the last month to stop by the forums... school + work + getting my 66' buick from my dad (dad was the second owner, bought it in 86) = no time for ocforums .

Anyway, this semester is over this week and I'll get some pictures up and stuff. Till then,

Fold On!

[ThePCGuy]

Hi Gary, nice work. So nissans eh? What breed specifically? 240Z, 240SX, 300ZX, 350Z, etc? (I know there are a whole lot more). I'd like to see some pictures.

- Jim

[AlabamaCajun]

Great to meet ya Gary. Good to see people still going into programming. If you persue the carreer for it then there's a few things to know. Learn everything about object oriented programming and methodologies. If you start heading toward game development then you will also need to pick up on multithreading and multiprocessor. Like to see you get those rigs set up soon!