It seems like I'm almost obligated to do an introduction around here, like I'm not really a part of the community until I have- so this is it!

photo by: Trever Precht

I'm Guru, short for gurudeva, pronounced goo-roo-day-vuh. Can you guess what my name is a reference to?

To be honest- I'm not normally comfortable talking about myself. I tend to avoid most social media except as a source of news, in general it kind of wierds me out and I find it pretty narcissistic. I know I'm in the minority there, and I'm glad social media exists.

Steemit on the other hand is a platform that interests me greatly. I recently woke up to cryptocurrency along with quite a few other people. The activity in the markets and promises of new tech on the horizon are super exciting. For the first time I feel like I have the ability to make worthwhile investments with small amounts of money. By providing the opportunity to create content and be compensated directly based on community feedback Steemit quickly grabbed my attention as not only one of the most promising new companies emergent in the cryptospace, but also as one of the best ways to generate crytocurrency without a warehouse full of ASIC miners.

I guess I'd describe myself as a video game junkie, burnout artist, musician, and drug addled wanderer.

I was born in San Diego, CA. I move around a lot, I get restless every few years any find myself in another state. I recently moved from Minnesota back to CA. MN was a wonderful state full of some amazing people.

I love video games, been playing them my whole life, starting with an NES. Lately I've been playing Final Fantasy XV and only partially enjoying it. I feel like for the most part great games are few and quite far in between. Some of my favorite games are Resident Evil 1-4, the FF series, Arma, StarCraft, Fallout 2, I could go on forever. I love all kinds of games, played a ton of WoW for many years. I think the most fun I've had gaming in the last decade was playing early DayZ mod for Arma 2, and I'm very much looking forward to the future of Star Citizen.
I do run a Twitch stream although it's pretty off and on. When I am in a streaming mood I stream quite often, all kinds of stuff. I'm thinking of streaming some day trading on Poloniex soon, and most likely some Star Citizen after the release of 3.0 next month.

I love music almost as much, sometimes more. I started playing in my early 20's and I'm fair to midland at quite a few instruments. I like to write and record original stuff, and then criticize it for years without showing anyone. Maybe I'll post some music sometime, but probably not. In terms of listening, my taste in music is about as eclectic as my taste in games. I like everything from the earliest lo fi folk recordings to modern gangster rap (actually I think these genres are fundamentally very similar) and all the stuff in between.

I studied music for a few years in college, majoring in theory, but I feel like it did more harm than good in terms of musical creativity. I also studied physics for about a year before ultimately dropping out. I've had tons of jobs: pizza delivery, courier, cook, waiter, sound guy, R&D analyst, UI designer, grocery bagger, weed delivery, bartender. My resume is a fucking disaster. I always find it real easy to get hired and become proficient at a new job fast, but I get bored even faster and things never stick too long. The best jobs I've had always end too soon for the lamest unforeseen reasons.

I also have an interest in photography and film making. I work with friends on video projects and write short films. Nothing substantial yet but I've put in some good work and hope to have something to share here on Steem in this regard in the near future.

I already feel like CTRL+A deleting this whole post and never looking back, so I think it's time to tag this up and hit POST before I change my mind.

I'm happy to be a part of Steemit as it grows, and I look forward to creating some good content for you all as I get my footing here. Check out my most recent article and thanks for taking the time to read all this crap!