[CS-FSLUG] OT: Re-introductions.

Sat Jan 14 14:53:23 CST 2006

On Tuesday 03 January 2006 00.33, Nathan T. wrote:
[snip]
>
> It seems people in this list have gotten around a fair bit, but I'm
> sorry to say I've forgotten a lot of you. I was wondering if some
> people might be interested in re-introducing themselves.
>
[snip]

Of course. Sorry for the delay!

My name is Eduardo Sánchez; that actually is César Eduardo Sánchez 
Gauto, where "César Eduardo" are my two first names, "Sánchez" is my 
first last name (my dad's last name), and "Gauto" is my second last 
name (my mom's maiden last name). That's the way Spanish names are 
built.

I was born 35 years ago in Asunción, Paraguay, South America. I lived 
there almost all the time. After graduation from high school, I entered 
the School of Chemistry of the local National University to study 
biochemistry, but due to personal problems I had to withdraw at roughly 
75% of my studies being completed.

I was born and raised Roman Catholic as is usually the case with most 
people. In 1989--1991 I was a numerary member of the Opus Dei. I know 
the organization well enough to tell it isn't the monster most people 
believe it to be, despite the Da Vinci Code.

In 1994 I decided to turn my life to Jesus Christ. I left the Roman 
Catholic Church and was baptized by immersion in the Centro Familiar de 
Adoración (Family Worship Center), an Assemblies of God mega--church. I 
was utterly miserable there because the doctrine and practices of said 
church were totally different from what I believed and practiced. Thus, 
in 1995 I joined Villa Morra Baptist Church, whose sanctuary was just 8 
blocks away from home, as a member, and I have my communion there from 
ever since.

My extra-church involvement began early in 1995, with the Grupos 
Bíblicos Unidos del Paraguay, the local equivalent of Inter-Varsity 
Christian Fellowship.

In 1996 I decided to enter seminary, and I chose Union Theological 
Seminary of Paraguay, a tiny Reformed seminary founded by a Korean 
Presbyterian mission. I got there my degree of Bachelor of Theology 
(which qualifies me for the ministry).

In August 2000 I went to Grand Rapids, MI (USA) to study at Calvin 
Theological Seminary, reading for a Master of Theology degree in 
Philosophical Theology under the supervision of Professor John Cooper. 
While there, I held a "student membership" (not a full membership) at 
LaGrave Avenue Christian Reformed Church. I was immensely happy at 
church, and I was very happy at school there, but it was intense and 
challenging. I finished all my coursework, but my local church in 
Paraguay couldn't afford to sponsor me for my thesis, so I had to 
return here.

In June 2003 I got married to Miss Gloria Riego, a beautiful, charming 
and intelligent lady. She's a practicing Roman Catholic, so our 
marriage took a bit of a negotiation ;-).

I worked in several environments, mostly as an assistant or as a 
teacher. Right now I am an assistant to Rev. Osvaldo Simari, Director 
of Evangelism of the Latin American Baptist Union, and I teach 
Bussiness Spanish to students of the Licenciature in English at the 
School of Living Languages of the Evangelical University of Paraguay.

I began to use computers at the age 8, with a small Apple II. Later, in 
1983, my dad bought me a Timex/Sinclair 1000 with the famous 16 KB 
module. He was the dean of the Polytechnic School of the National 
University, so he tried to expose me to a variety of computers. I 
remember seeing some CP/M computers, and most remarkably, I did some 
APL and BASIC coding on a 3270 IBM terminal hooked to an IBM 4331 
mainframe.

In 1984 I got a Commodore-64, and in 1987 it was upgraded to a Commodore 
128. In 1991 I got, well ahead of everyone in this country, a white-box 
i386SX with Windows 3.0 loaded. Later I upgraded to Win 3.1 and 3.11. 
in 1998 I got a brand-new whitebox PII/350 system with Win95, and it 
was later upgraded to Win98.

I got interested in Linux in 1999, and in May 2000 I ordered a box of 
Red Hat 6.2 Deluxe. I installed it as a dual boot configuration with 
Win98, and I got very pleased with it, but I wasn't completely 
satisfied.

When I had to go to America I sold my computer, and in my second day at 
Grand Rapids I bought a Compaq Presario 1200XL118 at a Best Buy 
store.It had Win98 and 64 MB. This is the same computer I'm posting 
this, with the RAM maxed out and a new hard-drive courtesy of Ed.

After Red Hat 6.2, I switched to RH 7.1 and 7.2, but I was increasingly 
disappointed by Red Hat's quality of KDE packages, so I switched to 
Mandrake 8.2 and I was in heaven for some time. However, Mandrake began 
going downhill after starting the Club thing. For the time I got 
Mandrake 9.0, I wiped out completely my Win 98 partition, but already 
had problems with Mandrake. I upgraded to 9.1, with some problems 
again; but 9.2 was downright unusable due to some seriously annoying 
bugs, inconsistencies with previous versions, and brain-dead defaults.

I installed Slackware 9.0 and I was in heaven again. I couldn't believe 
Slackware was so easy to use! since then I upgraded to Slackware 10, 
10.1, and now I am preparing to upgrade to 10.2.

I am a KDE user since late 2000, and since late 2001 I am part of the 
KDE-ES official Spanish translation team. I also was an IRCop at 
irc.pla.net.py, the most important and the largest IRC network of 
Paraguay.

I learned of the List when I was in America. For me, the opportunity to 
learn more about Free Software and be able to help others in a 
Christian context was simply great. Right now I am a list admin, 
although my present Internet connection prevents me from doing much 
significant work.

I have visited the U.S., Spain, France, Italy, Argentina, Brazil, 
Uruguay, and Bolivia.

I like to write; I have a blog (http://shadow.sombragris.org), and I am 
part of the editorial team of Ofb.Biz. I am interested in philosophy 
(especially metaphysics), life sciences, and computers. Lately, I've 
been trying, without much success, to learn the Ada95 programming 
language.

Well, that's my story!

Blessings,

Eduardo
-- 
Prof. Eduardo Sanchez
Asuncion, Paraguay, South America
http://shadow.sombragris.org
--------------------------------------------------------------
 And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
 Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die,
   Lift not thy hands to IT for help--for It
 Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.

 -- The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

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