As you know, the Member of the Month award is given to those members of the community that are outstanding. These members not only ask, learn and grow with us but they also give back to the community (often more than what they take). Our winner for this month, of course, is just like that: easy going and polite and always willing to help.
It is a real pleasure to congratulate Wolfshade and to thank him for all the effort and hard work he puts into this forum big round of applause for him
First things first, how did you find Sitepoint Forums and what made you stay?
I was looking around for a good ColdFusion and/or JavaScript forum. I did have accounts on other forums, and met some amazing people but didn’t really feel like I was finding something that was a ‘good fit’ for me. I’ve known about SitePoint for a while, even bought an excellent book on JavaScript from SitePoint many years ago. Then, one recent day I was searching via Google for a solution to an issue that I was having, and one of the first entries in the search results was a post in the SPF. I clicked on it, read the whole thread, and I don’t remember if that thread contained the resolution to my issue, or not; but either it did, or it didn’t but another thread did. So I thought I’d give SPF a try and created an account. Why I’m sticking around: same reason I really enjoy my current job - it’s the people.
Anything that you would like to change in the forum?
As others have pointed out, SPF will soon be transitioning to Discourse (which I’m pretty excited about), so nothing that I can think of. I’ve created an account on the Discourse beta site, and with few exceptions I’m really liking what I have seen, there. I think the switch will be a beneficial one. Of course, as with any major transition or conversion there are going to be some issues, some setbacks, some learning curve adjustments, etc., but overall I think that switching to Discourse will be an improvement. (Nothing against the current forum, but I understand that it’s got to the point where it’s more of a pain to maintain due to modifications and whatnot. I feel the pain of the admins/mods - I have a project that a former co-worker started in 2002, and it’s beyond the point where it should have been swapped out for something better.)
What’s the story behind your name, WolfShade? Is your real name “two socks”, the wolf that followed Kevin Costner in “dances with wolves?” 
ROFL! Heh, no. When I first started becoming active on the internet I was a hardcore player of “MechWarrior” (it was nothing for me to spend 12 hours a day running sorties.) One of the MW games had an expansion pack called “GhostBear”. I really liked both the pack and the name, so I originally took GhostBear as my internet moniker. After about six months, I felt cheesy taking a name that was already established as the name of a software expansion. One night I was tired while geekin’ on the 'net and halfway fell asleep while staring at the screen. I have no idea how long I was ‘out of it’, but when I snapped to, the word WolfShade was in the forefront of my thoughts. I asked an internet friend of mine what she thought of it as an alias, and she loved it. So, ever since then I’ve taken WolfShade as my internet identifier.
How did you get involved in world of web development?
Originally I was a PC technician. I cut my computer teeth on a 1984 IBM PC XT (8086) running DOS 3.31, for my father who just started his own company in 1987. Eventually, that led to a job as a traveling Mac tech for a company teaching a Mac maintenance course which, months later, led to a job interview in Chicago as an offsite Network Admin and PC tech. When the Chicago company closed its doors, my best friend (who works in web and multimedia) asked me to come work for him. I started learning HTML and JavaScript in August of 2000, and a few months later started learning ColdFusion and SQL. Since then, I’ve learned or gained experience in Classic ASP and some PHP. Since ColdFusion is built on a Java platform, I’d like to learn Java, next.
If there’s a wolf here, I guess it is because there’s a wild side to development… What is it?
“Wild side”? 
I’ve never seen camera crews running around CFUGs asking programmers to lift their shirt up, stare into the camera, and pout. 
You seem to hang around all over the forums but more around programming. You have both front-end and back-end skills. Do you consider yourself and front-end developer, back-end dev or none of the above?
I’d say more back-end, really. I have a very rudimentary grasp of CSS and design/layout, and I am getting pretty good with the whole DOM transversal/manipulation thing. But using a language to make database connections, mine the data, sort and format it, calculate with it, make comparisons with it, design/develop/query related tables, create Stored Procedures, stuff like that - I think that’s where I feel more comfortable, more in-the-groove.
What’s the difference between a good programmer and great one?
Troubleshooting. No matter how good one is at writing code, no matter how tricky or complex or slick one is with logic and being able to do things one way or another, if one cannot track down something that is causing a site/app to hiccup then one is a ‘good’ programmer. The one who can spot erroneous code in a matter of minutes is a ‘great’ programmer, IMHO.
I suspect that you would like more mountain than beach for holidays and very possibly winter to summer… am I right? What hobbies do you have?
I’ve never been much of a water- or beach-oriented person. Conversely, I’m not much of a hiker/camper, either, but fields, forests, mountains are comfortable, for me. Which is good, seeing as how I basically live near the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. As far as hobbies go, if there’s time I like to read. I used to play frisbee golf, but it’s been two decades since I last ventured on to a course. I love motorcycles (don’t currently have one, but want to get back into that, again), and watching sports that aren’t common to my area of the country, like Jai-Alai, Cricket, stuff like that.
What’s your favourite coulour? favourite movie? favourite book?
Black, because it’s the presence of all colours in the spectrum.
Probably the TRON franchise (saw the first one in theatres when I was 14 - it is probably the biggest reason I ever got into computers, in the first place.)
“Stranger In A Strange Land” by Robert A. Heinlein.
Anything else that you want to add? Maybe a few words of wisdom? a joke?
If I cannot laugh at myself, I haven’t the right to laugh at anyone else.
Q: How many programmers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: That’s a hardware issue.
