Hello Steemers!

My name is Mark and I must say, I'm pretty darned excited about the progress being made in making the blockchain accessible to the masses!

I am a software developer living and working in the Northeast Pennsylvania region (Scranton, PA). I've been interested in crypto/ blockchain business for a few months now. I must credit my good friend John (will link when he gives in and joins Steemit) for turning me on-to the blockchain. He gave a really wonderful presentation on Bitcoin and the blockchain for beginners (I can definitely share the slide-deck if anyone is interested), and since then, I feel any "free-free" time I have should be dedicated to exploring and learning more about the many innovative uses and implementations of the blockchain.

I feel the need to define "free-free": I am a new father. My son, Saja, is about 8 months old now and growing and developing RAPIDLY. We're (my wife Caitlin and I) having such a wonderful time. That said, much of extra time is spent with him. "free-free" time is the time when he's sleeping and I'm not cooking, reading, spending time with my wife, running, hiking, biking, brewing coffee, relaxing...

Family Photo:

I make coffee with these things:

I feel like there's so much to say, but ultimately, I hope this community can help to support me in a number of ways:

• I want help professionally. I'd like a source for high-quality currated content related to my job (Angular 4, .Net development)
• I want help personally. I'd love to find some other parents on here to help extend our supportive community. Sleep is a struggle
• I want help with ideas for organizing Scranton's Tech Meetup. I am presently the organizer of NEPA.js (a meetup group) and have taken on NEPATech. I'd love to hear from people who've started tech meetups in their communities
• I want to stumble on the things I didn't know I didn't know!

I plan to give back by:

• Posting about my processes related to the above!
• Voting and commenting.
• Bringing new faces to the community.
• Spending time with you all.
• Growing this list as my skills level-up.

Lastly, I'd like to thank my friend @jennbell for pointing my attention to Steemit and for being a fellow noobie in the place. I'm really looking forward to what I can both give and get from this community!

[EDIT]: Thank you thank you @sonnyboy! Here is some omitted info: