I'm a youth addictions counsellor, former AIDS worker/activist transplanted from the west coast to Nova Scotia.
I believe (and hope!) there is life out there. Sad if there wasn't, but I think the odds of finding others are good.
I visited the Arecibo Observatory nestled in the plush jungle of PR as a teen 25 years ago and was fascinated. Back then it would have been impossible to imagine that way in the future I'd have a personal computer at home (I'd never even seen a computer then...) that would download information from there to process. This future is a pretty amazing place, eh?!
SETI@home and Astropulse are funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and donations from SETI@home volunteers. AstroPulse is funded in part by the NSF through grant AST-0307956.