Community Spotlight - Featuring: Im Here to Help!

[b][u]Community Spotlight- Featuring: Im Here to Help![/b][/u] Welcome to the third Community Spotlight interview, featuring Im Here to Help! IHTH was recommended to me by various people for being, as the name suggest, helpful and positive member on Bungie.net. He has chosen to do a written interview, and through this interview hopefully you will learn a little bit more about him. [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Profile/254/1629818]Enigmatic Entity[/url] was our interviewer for this time around, let's see how the interview went! -vanert [b]Q: Hi there, glad to be doing this. First of all, do you have a preferred abbreviation of your name?[/b] A: IHTH would be fine. [b]Q: So IHTH; you're a long term member of the community. How did you first get here? Halo 3 was a very sweet taste back then.[/b] A: I used to come here during the Halo 2 era to look for easter eggs and the skull locations and such. I didn't make an account until Halo 3 and even back then I didn't really participate in the community much. I just wanted my blue flames and my stats to be honest. [b]Q: We both signed up one game too late, haha. Do you have a favourite subforum (old or new)?[/b] A: Well I do still have my Halo 2 avatar which is nice... I gotta say that once I discovered The Flood during the darkness it really became my favorite place to hang out. I still stop in Community from time to time hoping that there's something interesting that's not a fan fic. Something like this, actually. [b]Q: There have been lots of fond memories. Have you recently been keeping up with gaming news? Since E3 happened recently, I wanted to get your opinion on anything you found capturing.[/b] A: I watched the Xbox live stream. I'm pretty excited for Player Unkown's Battlegrounds coming to the One and Anthem. I really wish I had more time to devote to gaming... [b]Q: Me too, but it's great to still engage in this community regardless. What sort of things do you relate to with people from this community?[/b] A: I feel that there's some middle ground with pretty much everyone here. I might disagree with someone on politics but we might love some of the same music. They might hate beer but love some of the same TV shows as I do. Although I probably spend most of my time with the older users as we are in a similar place in life I'm usually open to talk to just about anyone about anything. [b]Q: That's what keeps this place running. With the inevitable growth of the community from PC players when Destiny 2 comes around, I'm curious to see the change. You're almost at your tenth birthday here, will you be celebrating? What moments can you take from the last ~10 years here that give you nostalgic vibes?[/b] A: Ten years here is hard to believe. Though the first four were mostly spent lurking and looking at my dismal Halo stats. If only they could track how much fun you're having in game...For my tenth B.net Bday I'm thinking I might do some sort of giveaway. Working on the details still. As far as the nostalgia goes I'm not sure. There are definitely members I miss. And I miss how creative and fun this place used to be. Most of my posts tend to push people to use their imagination or I try to get people to open up to get to know the community members more. My favorite post of mine was the "I ask a question and you give a fake answer" thread. Got a lot of creative and fun answers. So I guess if I'm nostalgic for anything it's for the fun and creativity that used to be more commonplace around here. [b]Q: Is there a point in time where you started to feel like you belonged here or were an integrated part of the community? For some people it just clicks in a short timespan.[/b] A: It took a little while to find my place here to be honest. I started posting what I saw others posting: current events, shit posts, etc. None of them did very well. Once I started making posts that were more interactive or personal I found I had a better time (and better responses). Around that time B.net was going through some growing pains as well. Old members were leaving (mostly to form Sep7agon (an offsite)) and this place was becoming pretty hostile and negative. I changed my username at that point from Jaywalkas (some people still know me by that) to Im Here to Help and decided to try to bring a positive impact to the forums. I do try to live up to my name now. It's not that hard for me as I'm generally a pretty helpful person in the real world. Always volunteer if my friends need help moving or with a project, or any way I can. [b]Q: And we love you for it. About your life outside of gaming; would you like to tell us what you get up to? Perhaps the things you enjoy most. [/b] A: Yeah, this community has ended up meaning a lot more to me than I ever expected it would and there's rarely a day that goes by that I don't at least stop in to see what's going on. Well most people who know me on the forums know that I run a brewery in the Pacific Northwest. It's what occupies the majority of my time and energy. But I feel very fortunate that I get to make a living doing something that I love to do. Plus getting sent to beer festivals and all of the "free" beer is a nice bonus! I also enjoy going to shows when I can, digging for new to me music, cooking, and watching movies. [b]Q: You have to tell us what your favourite kind of beer is. The best I've ever had is an obscure sweet stout.[/b] A: I usually try to pair my drink with the situation, food, or weather. I'd rather not have a heavy stout on a day like today (it's 94 degrees outside) when I could have a nice, light pilsner. But if it came down to a desert island situation and could only have one beer for the rest of my life it'd probably have to be Odell IPA. With Uinta's Tinder as a close second. [b]Q: I'm no beer expert but those sound splendid. I don't condone the drinking of diuretics in the desert though (or underaged drinking, kids)! How long have you been in the brewery business?[/b] A: It's not quite the desert here, but it sure felt like it today! I've been brewing professionally for twelve years now. I got my start in Seattle at Hale's Ales and brewed there for six years after working my way up from the bottling line (the bottom). From there my wife and I moved to Portland where I ended up at Pyramid/Portland Brewing making beer on a giant 120 barrel system (a barrel is 31 US gallons). It was a pretty surreal experience. After realizing that I had pretty much hit the ceiling on what I could do there I started passively looking for a head brewer's position. Basically a brewery manager. I had some great references and landed the job and have been in charge of this current brewery for four years now. I've kinda had an open invite for the last few years to anyone on B.Net who wants to visit the brewery going where I said I would cover some pints for them. So far only one person has answered the call. [i]*Editor's note: If you are genuinely interested in paying IHTH a visit at his brewery, feel free to shoot him a PM.[/i] [b]Q: That sounds like such a good atmosphere to be in, honestly. Twelve years is a long while. It's shoutout time now! Is there anybody from bnet that you'd like to show particular appreciation for? Any reason is valid.[/b] A: This would be a long list if I had to include everyone I appreciate here. Let's see if I can't keep it shortish: Vanert for starting this whole thing. DTL for the Flood Fantasy Football League (it can't start soon enough) and just being DTL. Neno is Drunk is still one of the most underrated users here. Lil Shabazz for having great taste in almost everything. Mad Max for beer. Progo for the arts. Enigmatic Entity for putting up with my hectic schedule for this interview. Stupendous Finn for sticking around to become one of my favorite newer users. The Ninjas for keeping this place clean and their sassy remarks. Lady Ghöst for some much needed positivity around here. And CamCamm for being her wonderful brand of Camm. Oh, and Cellar Door never ceases to entertain me. And honestly the community as a whole I wouldn't have stuck around for so long if wasn't for the people here that have come and gone throughout the years. [b]Q: This has been a very fun and warm spotlight. Is there anything you would like to visit before we wrap up?[/b] A: Belgium? [b]Q: You and your beer..[/b] That will be concluding this community spotlight, thanks to anybody reading and enjoying this, to[url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Profile/254/90576] Im Here to Help[/url] for being our guest and the rest of the spotlight team for the help. Here's a link to our [url=https://discord.gg/fy28Qju]Discord[/url] server if you're interested in participating in the fun. Bye from us for now!