145XXX and I am on the other side of the world, no connection to SV at all

That was my connection too! I joined in 2008 when I got my first Rails gig where they were using GitHub, which I hadn't heard of before.

I'm user 7xx,xxx but I also believe I created a Github account while working on Rails projects (basically copying Ryan Bates and assembling things together. haha good times)

I'm also surprised. I'm user 34967 and I was pretty far from Silicon Valley when I joined in late 2008.