Yup. July 2010 slashdot.org article.

Of course I thought bitcoin was stupid, but having had an unfortunate incident as a poor kid trying to save money for college and gotten beat up and lost all my savings, and having had college degrees in astrophysics and math, I read the white paper and decided on the spot to start mining bitcoin. Got 4 blocks over the subsequent 12 hours before I had to be back at the hospital.

My hope was that maybe someday some kid somewhere could put money someplace where math instead of meat could defend it.