Little did I realize in July of last year what my curiosity about a crypto currency increasing at over 200% on bittrex would lead to.

It began when I discussed with my wife how I could have bought Bitcoin for $20 when I first became aware of it and it would have been worth over $7 million today. I thought it was a very cool idea, but my pessimism with regards to government made me and another friend whom I still work closely with say "That's really neat, but the government will kill it." It was also at a time when my family and I were struggling a great deal financially. That $20 I could have spent on bitcoin would have bought my family and I a few meals.

Anyway I explained this to my wife. She told me that the next time I see something I think is innovative to TAKE THE RISK and the family would back me. I started looking. One of my friends on the slack I've been part of for awhile @kaptainkrayola spoke to me quite a bit about various cryptos he was mining and Ethereum in particular. So in the wake of the conversation with my wife, and with @kaptainkrayola I decided I'd investigate mining some Ethereum. I eventually ended up on bittrex to teach myself how to use that exchange. I sorted the (far too many IMO) cryptos by % of increase and steem was at the top. I went directly to steemit.com. I said to myself "This sounds interesting, signed up, and posted something" Steem was worth $1 when I signed up so I started with 10 free steem power. Within a few days it went as high as $4/steem and I actually had made some money off of posting.

I had no idea how drawn into the community and the platform I would become. It opened up creative and mental pathways that were dusty and had fallen into disuse. During the addictive journey I have undertaken on steemit I personally feel as though those pathways have not only been dusted, they have been remodeled and are a gleeming mental palace. I maintain this palace by continuing to give my creations a home on steemit.

During this journey I have met many people that have really inspired me. So many of my mind opening posts found their seeds in writings or discussions between other steemit community members. I have memories of interacting with many of them that are still around today, and some that are idle or silent for some time now. For this #userchain I had to really decide on one. That seems to be the goal. I would like to list many people that have inspired me at various points such as @andrarchy (mostly silent these days), @klye (still remember when all his dick comical drawings hit the scene), @bacchist (stretched my mind in new directions), @richq11 (always a great conversationalist, and a fellow connoisseur of good metal), @alchemage (and the interesting paths he steered me down), @kidsysco (a fellow friend from my slack who came after I told the slack how cool steemit was) and many others. Everyone I interact with has some value to me. This is true even of those that have been primarily negative interactions (few in number).

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@hanshotfirst

The person I've decided to tag in this #userchain is @hanshotfirst. That is pronounced "Han shot first". I remember when @hanshotfirst exploded onto the steemit scene. His writing was top notch and interesting. A lot of his recounting of his youth was similar in many ways to my own. He would write these vibrant pieces that were very entertaining to read whether they be about his past, about movie reviews, meeting the love of his life, or being an educator of children. When @hanshotfirst has something to say you can be certain the read will be an enjoyable and thoughful experience.

This does not extend just to his posts. He can also be quite the conversationalist in the comments section. I haven't actually interacted with @hanshotfirst for awhile now, but I've still read his works, and enjoyed the ones I caught. I have little doubt that he and I will cross paths again in the future. If you need some enjoyable reads then digging through his blog and reading some of his older pieces is a worthy endeavor.

Here is a sample... the journey is from older to newer posts... (some before I had noticed his work)

I could go on and on. If you need some good reading simply type in https://steemit.com/@hanshotfirst and check it out yourself.

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User Chain

This user chain idea is the brainchild of @tincho. There have been a number of posts though finding them all simply by clicking on the #userschain tag may not be as we would like. It only seems to show a single entry at the moment, and likely will be joined by this one once I post.

EDIT: It helps if you look for #userschain and not #userchain. Better at this point to probably use both tags.

Here are the links in the chain that I am aware of:
@tincho, @danilamarilu, @papa-pepper, @verbal-d, @jedau, @therealpaul, @dreemit, and @son-of-satire.

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The Rules

The rules are simple. You are to pick a single user (though @son-of-satire picked several, including me) and write a post similar to this tagged #userchain.

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Thank you steemit... @son-of-satire, and @hanshotfirst.

Steem On!