About Me
My name is Edward Poore (more commonly referred to as Ed), I am a geek and proud of it. In fact by attending Imperial College you're unusual if you are not a geek of some form. I spend a lot of my time either programming, shooting or (thinking about) rebuilding my Land Rover. The domain name was chosen in jest a few years ago as an obvious pun.
I split my time equally at the moment between London and West Wales depending on term dates etc for my degree. I am currently studing for my MEng: Electrical & Electronic Engineering at Imperial College, London.
I will just explain a bit about the references to a "forced" gap year to clarify things later on. During my A-Levels and the subsequent summer break I was diagnosed with Non-Hotchkins Lymphoma, a rare form of cancer of the lymphatic system. While still being diagnosed with this I got in touch with the admissions people at Imperial and they strongly suggested that I took a gap year to get treated, this I ended up doing (they reserved my place). It took from September to a PET/CT scan in February to clear the cancer through chemotherapy, fortunately the only regular side-effect I felt of the chemotherapy was the loss of all hair. Following the all-clear I went out to the States for three weeks and returned to undergo a stem-cell transplant to reduce the likelihood of recurrence.
I have been programming for almost ten years now, having moved through the following languages / frameworks (in order):
- HTML
- Visual Basic 6
- Classic ASP
- Visual Basic .NET
- C# (.NET 1.1 & 2.0)
- SQL
- ANSI C
- Assembler (PIC & M16C)
- C++
- ASP.NET
- JavaScript
- Python
- .NET 3.x (LINQ & WPF)
- Pascal / Delphi
My favourite language / framework at the moment is .NET 3.5 and dislike Pascal with a vengeance but was forced to learn it during my first year at Imperial. I have written a few articles for the CodeProject over the years and more are planned in the works.
I've been working as a programmer for the last 4 years or so during the summer and during my "forced" gap year, apart from freelance work the majority has been done for the Magstim Company Ltd and a bit of work for AyS in the Basque region of Spain. I tend to be called in for one-off projects that require prototyping and researching, due to the fact that I excel at learning new technologies and techniques rapidly.
Since I was 14 I have been taking part in the sport of clay pigeon shooting (as well as experimenting with other forms). I was mentored by a close family friend, Llew David from the beginning and am now teaching the old dog some new tricks. When I get the chance (i.e. when I'm back in Wales) I help him run Whitland Gun Club, setting up the club and running the shoots on Friday practice nights as well as league shoots and qualifiers.
I have represented my county, Dyfed, in English Sporting, National Skeet and All-Round disciplines and in 2007 got the opportunity to shoot for the Welsh team in the World Championships in San Antonio in Sportrap, FITASC and Compak disciplines.
At the moment, the summer of 2008, I am being "sponsored" to become a qualified clay shooting coach. My thanks go out to:
- Whitland Gun Club - Safety Officers Course
- Imperial College Rifle & Pistol - Instructors Development Workshop
- Sport Imperial - Instructor Workshop L-1
In total between the three organisations they are putting forward about £1000 for the courses and I do not pay a thing.
During my AS levels a group of friends and myself went to the Swansea Open Award Centre (SOAC) to attain our Gold Duke of Edinburgh's Awards. It was a fantastic experience and in hindsight the four of us that completed it thouroughly enjoyed it.
Throughout my final year of school I stayed on with SOAC and lead a group of Bronze youngsters through their award. Due to the forced gap year I helped out again but didn't know how the chemo would affect me so just helped each meeting rather than lead a group. During my time at Imperial I try to make as many of the expeditions as I can but cannot, unfortunately, make all of them.
Several years ago now I acquired a 1983 Series III Land Rover and am currently in the process of rebuilding it on a new galvanised chassis. Things are coming together slowly and hopefully will have it up and running in a few months and on the road soon after that. It is very satisfying when things start to go right on it and you can see it coming together. The thing I am looking forward to most when it is up and running is being able to "customise" it, there is already a winch on the front which will be useful. However, I think the most useful addition shall be a couple of hooks so that a hammock for Duke of Edinburgh expeditions can be used.