My LUG Experience

I, Toby G, have always had a peaceful unchanging life. I had vary few changes in my life before I made a decision that would alter my life forever. That decision was to come here to Pennsylvania College of Technology. The reason it was so drastic is that I would have to leave home and come to a place that seemed foreign to me. I had left my home before but never permanently. When I got here I went through the typical three day orientation. It starts with all of us going out by the campus center on a brisk fall day. We then were grouped in an almost random fashion and assigned to an RA. I then had to hunt around the courtyard to find a number 16 that my RA was holding. When I finally found the number I realized that everyone was standing in a circle around him and so I quickly joined in. My RA started off with “My name is Jim. I'm in architectural design and I like hunting. Now tell us a little about yourself”. I then start to think about what I'm going to say when the circle gets around to me. It gets closer and closer to me and I still have nothing to say. I start to tense up and my hands start to sweet. I then notice that the circle had already gotten to me and I had not yet thought of what to say. Jim belches out “And what is your name”. I meagerly answer “I'm Toby Peters. I'm in Web & Application Design and I like computers”. Thats all I could come up with. “I like computers” is a horrible nerdy thing to say. After that I looked around at who was in the group and realized none of them where going to be anyone I associated with outside of this activity.

I don't have much in common with most people. Growing up I had a few friends but I didn't really connect with any of them. I am the type of geeky kid that would much rather be in front of a computer all day than doing anything else. When I got here to Penn College I expected not to make friends (outside of classes) because I'm the type of person who thinks friends are usually a waste of time. However what ended up happening was quite the opposite. After I got through the orientation I of course forgot all of the people within group 16's names just as I had expected to.

The first couple of weeks go by and just as I had expected I had not made any friends. It's not that I couldn't have, its that I didn't have to. I typically make friends that will somehow help me in my classes but up here that is more difficult because there is an almost zero chance of having the same classmates in several classes.

When I have my headphones on I'm not listening to music as one would expect. I'm listening to something known as podcasts. Podcasts are audio files that can be downloaded to your computer that contain people talking. They are similar to radio shows. Then one day as I'm walking to class with my headphones on I get stopped in the hall by some guy who has blue eyes and a lip ring who hands me a poster. I look down and it says LUG meeting today. At first thought I was thinking “what the heck is LUG”. Then as I read on I realized that LUG meant Linux User Group. I knew what Linux was already because I had used it in the past for a brief amount of time. As I read on the paper explained that Linux is an operating system and it is free. After seeing that there was free pizza at the first meeting I made a decision that I would go, not knowing how it would change my future forever.

The meeting started out with that guy with the blue eyes and lip ring saying what his name was. He was named Evan and he was running for the president position of PCLUG. The PC in PCLUG stands for Penn College. Then he introduces the other people are nominated for positions. He goes through one by one having them come up and give speeches. I didn't think I was going to get involved with the club so I sat back in the corner and day dreamed. I knew I wouldn't remember all of them but I did happen to be paying attention when Evan said “And now the person running for the position of secretary Andrew”. I thought to myself, “That's got to be horrible to be a secretary in any club.” Just the thought of having to take down all of the meeting notes made me want to hurl. When Andrew stepped up to the front of the room I noticed that he was a gaunt, pale, and nerdy type of person and he was exactly what what you would expect from a secretary of a computer club. Andrew seemed to be a skittish type of person who didn't like to talk in front of groups. Unlike the rest of those who had ran for positions he gave an extremely short speech. The only thing he said was “Hi my name is Andrew”.

After the speeches Evan got started on what the Linux User Group offered. He explained “We offer web space with PHP and My SQL...”. I started to doze off and when he was about half way through his speech someone from the peanut gallerie shouts out “I'm a republican” out of nowhere it seemed. I quickly look to see who it is and I was shocked to see that it was our treasurer. The rest of the group doesn't comment on his statement, at least not verbally, and Evan just continued his speech. After Even gave his speech he finally said the words I was waiting to here all meeting “Now you can all have some of the pizza!”. As I'm eating the delicious pizza I had waited all meeting to grab from the box I realize that I might actually like this club and I decide to go back to the second meeting.

Later on that night I start to here my stomach growl and I make the decision to go to eat on campus for the first time. When I get to “The Commons”, an all you can eat buffet on campus, I see Andrew the PCLUG secretary there eating a salad. I decide that I'll sit down and talk to him to find out more about the club and himself. I'm terrified to go up to people I haven't meet and start a conversation. This was actually one of the few times in my life I had done this. I sit down at his table and say “Hi my name is Toby”. He responds with “My name's Andrew”. I tell him that I know and that I was at the meeting. Through different occasions at The Commons and other PCT events I got to know Evan and some of the other prominent members of PCLUG.

The meetings go by and at each one a different topic, each one just as interesting as the last if not more interesting. As the club nears the middle of the semester I notice that we have no promotional advertising and make a decision to ask Evan about it. Evan answers my question with “I don't have the time but if you would like to do that you can start a committee.” I respond with, “Of course I will do that.” The next week I became the official head of the advertising committee. And that was my first LUG experience.