I might be too late, I decided that I was not going to enter this but then I decided that I was going to. so yeah, here goes...
I am Tommy. I live in Minnesota. I am a highschool student, I play with computers for fun, and for money I solder synthesizer circuit boards. My family has always had q few computers, the first computer that was mine was a server that was retired at the university that my dad worked at. I installed a sound and graphics card (It needed neither for the purpose it was used in) and that was my go-to machine until I got my first laptop, after I got my laptop I mainly used the keyboard in the laptop, it never occurred to me to think about the keyboard that I typed on. several laptops later and I was ready to get a desktop again. I built a pc and bought a fancy mouse, then I went into the basement and grabbed a random keyboard, and no, I didn't grab the model m. I remembered that there was a keyboard on my early desktops that felt better than any of the current keyboards and I was wondering what made it that way. after months of rubber dome torture I found the model m hidden in a closet. My dad had gotten it new and it was our main keyboard for a while, it suffered some liquid spills and eventually it stopped working, but having found it I was obsessed with the feel, I did some research found out about the model m, and stopped there, at this point I was about 12. My father, still working at the university, snagged model ms from a friend in the recycling center there. I kept the first one, the IBM one that I still have, and we sold the rest on ebay. I used the model M from then on, though I knew not the name mechanical keyboard, or that there were other switch types. It was later on that I found myself wanting some modern features, I found the Das, and I wondered what was inside it. More research, I found cherry switches, even more, I found that my siig minitouch was mechanical, and then one fateful day at school when browsing the classifieds of another forum during math class, I found someone selling a desktop, he was asked for references and sent a link to his geekhack page. I clicked in deeper as I was curious (I wondered because of the name) and I found that it was the site of my dreams, I didn't know that there were other weirdos like me that cared about their keyboards, I joined, and I immediately felt the wallet suck, I spent way to much money on 'boards and 'caps and saw click clacks. Honestly they never really made me that excited so I was wondering why they are so popular, I am not willing to pay an arm and a leg for one but I want one to see what all the fuss is about. Why I should win it is because if I win I will be able to find out if I like them, if I do I will be hooked, and if not I will host my own giveaway to pass it on!
