"I've been a sci-fi / fantasy / gaming geek all my life. I grew up in the San Francisco area, where I started programming at the ripe old age of nine. At fifteen, I did some contract programming work on such exciting projects as Fairchild's pension plan and software to manage teachers' grade books.

"In 1990, while I was in college (majoring in graphics programming), I became a beta tester for The Sierra Network, an online game network that was headquartered near Yosemite. My bug reports contained enough useful

information that they kept me on through several cycles. During this time, I got to chatting with one of the regular customers, a wonderful lady who lived down in Orange County. Shortly after this, I noticed that one of the people I was communicating with at the company had changed titles from "systems programmer" to "director of systems programming," so I asked if there were any openings. I applied, got the job, dropped out of college, moved to the mountains, and married that wonderful woman from Orange County.