Here at Sitepoint we like to recognize members we feel are a great contribution to the Sitepoint Community. It is my pleasure to announce the member of the month for February of 2013 is Lemon Juice!
With the coveted award, we offer the recipient to take part of an informal interview, so let the curtain revealing begin to the insights of what makes Lemon Juice, well, Lemon Juice 
Let me start off with the million dollar question, were you surprised and how do you feel?
Maybe a bit surprised but not too much as there were some users who said they would like to somehow promote a few of us who answered their questions. It’s definitely nice to feel that some people appreciate your presence here, at least this is a reminder that it’s worth participating here.
What made you choose Lemon Juice as your username? Any kind of story behind it?
The story is simple - I once read about a lot of health benefits of drinking lemon juice and there was a program to detox your body by drinking lemon juice every day. I don’t remember the details now but it lasted a few weeks and gradually you had to increase the amount of juice until you reached 20 lemons in a day. Of course, the juice had to be pure without any additives. It was a challenge but I enjoyed it - what I enjoyed most was the reaction of my friends as they listened to how much lemon juice I was drinking :). The good thing was that with time the sour taste stopped being so problematic. Then I just figured out that many people have usernames that make no sense so I may as well be Lemon Juice :).
We have taken notice of your contributions in both the PHP and Databases & MySQL forums, do those specific topics correlate to your skillset and expertise?
Certainly, that’s what I’m involved with on a daily basis and that’s what interests me most in the web development area. But I wouldn’t call myself an expert because I think there are some more advanced skills I haven’t mastered yet like test driven development or some programming paradigms. I’m a completely self-taught guy, I haven’t even read a single book on programming and haven’t done any courses. Most of the information needed to do web development is available for free on the web and whenever I need to solve a specific problem I search the web and often sites like SP forums prove to be a valuable source of information. This also needs caution because in this way it’s easy to make mistakes we are not aware of but with time and practice we get to discover that, too.
In line with the previous question, do you have other skills or expertise in other fields that might not get as much coverage here (or are non-existant) on the Sitepoint forums?
Yes, I’ve always had many various interests, sometimes I think too many :). I’ve been interested in photography, electronics, I used to practice orienteering, I took courses in meditation. Currently, I am interested in internal martial arts, practice tai-chi and qigong, which I think is a blessing for someone whose job is about sitting in front of a computer screen :).
If you could change anything on the forums, what would it be and why?
Hard to say, I already think this forum is one of the best in terms of topics, moderation quality and user-friendliness. I just have a feeling that recently there are not as many active users as a few years ago, it would be great to somehow drive more people here. But it may be hard now since sites like stackoverflow are a strong competition. The quality of the forums mostly depends on the quality of the members - for example, it was nice to have an advanced PHP Application subforum where people with a lot of programming experience were discussing more advanced stuff. Now it seems there are more novice users who just want to get quick fixes without putting much effort in learning. I don’t have anything against novices but I think it’s all about balance - a forum needs novices but also an elite that you can look up to. I know this is one of the hardest aspects to get right if you are forum admin. Still, SP has many valuable “elite” members and I hope it will stay like this and even improve.
I must say, you are a hard person to look up. I searched numerous pages for “username Lemon Juice”, “forums username Lemon Juice”, and so on just trying to get a glimpse of your personality, interests, likes, and so forth. From my searches, I can only ascertain that 1) you love being mixed in a bowl, 2) you love to bring flavor to the party, and 3) you go well with a few mixed drinks. Have I nailed it? Are there other activities that take up your time when you are not active at the forum or hard at work/school?
Yep, basically you nailed it, I am a bit of mixed bowl in terms of my activities and interests :). I am also a member on forums.dpreview.com as lemon_juice and on www.smarty.net/forums/ but my activity is low there. Generally, I’ve found that too much activity on forums is too time consuming to be worth it - and I think this especially holds true of people like me who spend most of their time at the computer because of their job and when I finish my job I don’t really have much desire to spend the rest of my day in a virtual reality of the internet :). So I am most active at SP forums :). I am also a kind of traditionalist in spite of dealing with such modern subjects as web development - I feel that the world of internet, mobile phones, tablets and other gadgets is trying to get too deep into our lives and we tend to lose contact with reality. That’s the reason why I don’t have a laptop nor a tablet nor a facebook account and my mobile phone is a simple and small SonyEricsson device that I use primarily for calling and texting people. When I finish my work or go away for a weekend or on holiday I just want to have a rest from the internet and computer world I’m involved with almost every day.
Okay, enough of some of the seriousness, now for some fun…
How many Lemons does it take to change a Light bulb?
This question is too intimate so please forgive me if I leave it unanswered.
When someone squeezes a lemon… do you call him murderer and want to take revenge?
No, there are certain things that are meant to be squeezed, men should have no problem with this understanding
What kind of Lemon Juice are you? Concentrated or freshly squeezed?
Always freshly squeezed with no additives. Have you ever tried drinking pure fresh juice squeezed out of 20 lemons at a time? I can tell you it’s a remarkable experience and a great way of detoxifying your body :).
If life hands you a lemon, what do you do with it?
If I don’t get the lemon on my own I have a tendency to forget it. The best effect can be achieved if you are living in a place with pretty high temperatures, I mean around 30 deg. C. When you leave a lemon in such a place for a few weeks it will not go rotten and start stinking, instead it will change into an interesting green-greyish dried-out object that can be used as a curious decoration - whenever someone comes to your place you show them the lemon and ask what it is and see how they struggle to come up with answers! :). You can also try it with a banana - it will turn into a black, dry, hard, moon-shaped object that looks pretty nice when hung on the wall!
BTW, why so many questions about lemon juice?
That ends the interview and so without further ado, let me be the first to congratulate Lemon Juice on this coveted achievement.
Congratulations, you deserved it!
I enjoyed your questions @
