My neighbor in 1983 introduced me to Dungeons & Dragons.  I was hooked.  I was only 11 years old.  I would go to my local game store called Aero Hobbies.  I would go in and just browse all the different games.  I tried everything.  Now there are divisions within gaming.  People play RPG's, board games, collectable card games and miniature games.  Back in the 80’s if you were a gamer that included all of these plus video games.  CCG games didn’t really happen till 1993 when Magic came out.

Then in Junior high when a friend of mine wanted me to join his new campaign of a new game called Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.  I couldn’t believe how much cooler this was than D&D.  The next year a store called Games Workshop opened in Santa Monica.  I went in and they had glass cases filled with painted space marine armies.   I bought a Rogue Trader box of 30 marines for 30 bucks.  I built and painted my own army in a custom black and orange scheme.  I brought it back to the store where they had tables for people to play.  The guys in the store laughed at me for not having painted an army in a traditional scheme.  I never played a game with that army.

In college I was still playing a lot of games.  Then Magic the gathering came out.  Everyone in the gaming hobby was hooked.  It was hard to avoid it.  I played all throughout college. 

Then after college I came back home and my friend got me a job testing video games for a company called NovaLogic.  I built up some experience.  Then I switched to Treyarch where I became producer for Tony Hawk 2x.  It was a launch title for the original Xbox in 2001.  Making video games was a great place to be a gamer.  Many people would play traditional games after work.  So I almost always had a game group.

In 2001 I came to Thailand for a 2 week vacation.  My friend was going to Koh Samui.  He had friends who lived there and told me I should join them.  I came and had an amazing time.  I went back to work and the new game I was working on had a bunch of production issues.  Then in 2003, I got cut from my job and decided to have an extended break in Thailand. I stayed for 3 months.  I loved it.  That was it.  I moved to Thailand in October 2003.

Everything was great.  I made lots of friends.  I met my wife but I really never met any gamers.  There were no game shops in Bangkok at that time.  Then I met a guy at a language class in 2015.  We were chatting and I asked him what he did for fun.  He said he played games.  I asked him “what type?”  He said “I wouldn’t know.”  I said “Try me.”  A game called warhammer.  I was all in.  Apparently a new store opened in 2012 in Bangkok.

This got me back into gaming.  I got into miniatures and started watching all the hobby content creators on youtube.  Now this is my full time hobby and I love it.  I recently moved to Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand. This has a much bigger gaming scene than Samui.  I have my own gaming space and I get to paint all the time.