John - No need to be defensive (I hope). As I've said on a number of other occasions, I am a mechanical engineer in Memphis, TN. I design HVAC systems for a wide variety of commercial, institutional, and industrial buildings - pretty far removed from the consumer electronics world. I got into the home theater hobby in large part because of Outlaw's second product (the Model 1050), and have enjoyed a number of Outlaw's products in the years since. As for compensation or kick-back, I have done a spot of beta testing for them (anybody remember the ill-fated but quite nifty IR1000?) and I do occasionally chat with Scott - does that count?

I assume your question stems from my active role in the Saloon. When this forum was created, I was still something of a newcomer to the hobby, but I'd been climbing the learning curve aggressively over the previous year or so and found that there were people asking questions here that I could answer - in many cases, questions that I'd been asking myself not too long before and knew how hard it could be sometimes to find clear answers to. I've been hanging out ever since. Some days, I've been able to help people solve problems and better understand the hobby. Other days, I've learned very neat stuff from other folks here - I enjoy being part of a community that is welcoming to newcomers with very basic questions and that has some well-informed discussion of more complex topics.