This is me.  Like it or not!  :)

Well, I guess this is where I tell you who I am and what I like to do.  I am a 40 year old divorced, single parent.  I have
2 boys ages 15 and 16.  The elder plays Spellfire, the younger plays Magic.  I came from a relatively large family of 9, including
mom and dad.  Brothers 3 and 4 are identical twins, though you would never guess it by looking at them.  All 6 of my siblings are brothers, so counting me
mom had 7 boys.  We were quite a handful with all the fighting and stuff that boys do, but mom and dad did really well.  We are a pretty tight knit family.  We
are always there for each other when we need to be.  Mom always wanted to have a girl, but as you can see that didn't happen.  Heck, except for one of the
several dogs that we owned when I was growing up, even they were all males!!

Anyway, on to me.  As is probably evident from the main page, I like to play Spellfire®.  I have been playing since 1994 since the game came out.  A good friend
of mine, John Kapsh, came over one evening with a new game to show me.  It was called Spellfire®.  He told me it was based on Dungeons and Dragons....loosely!
He pulled out a couple of sealed starter decks, we went through the rules to try to figure it out and were hooked from that night on.  I think we played 3 or 4 games to
try to get the hang of it.  After that, we got 2 or 3 others involved and started getting together pretty regularly to play.  At that time, Magic was out as well.  John and
I gave that a try as well, but I didn't really like the game that much, so when I saw an ad in a Dragon magazine saying to send in 60 cards for a no edition starter set, I
did just that.  I actually was able to use this game as a tool to teach my oldest son, Scott, to read.  He started in something like 1st grade.  I helped him through the powers
of the cards, and eventually he was able to read a good lot of them by himself.  He was reading at about 3rd grade by the end of the school year, if I remember correctly!

I also run a semi-annual tournament out of my home.  I have been doing so since 2001.  My first tournament that I ran, I wasn't really sure what I was doing, but it went
well and I had 21 people show up.  I made the big mistake of just being the judge and not play!  Man, that was pretty boring.  However, I did meet the infamous
"Gib Sinned"!  Yes, Dennis Atkinson came.  I didn't realize he was THAT Dennis, I just thought he was a guy named Dennis.  I didn't know his last name.  I believe he was at
this one, it may have been my second one, I can't remember for sure.  We had a rules disagreement, and of course, he won!

Starting the second tournament and going until the present time, I met Jim "Baron" Leichsenring.  This guy doesn't come to win a trophy, he just comes to have a
good time and play Spellfire, because he doesn't have many near him to play.  Now, of course, Jim has left my house with a trophy EVERY SINGLE TIME!!!
Jim is also gracious enough to run a sealed event at my tournaments and supply a prize as well.  We also came up with the idea that there should be a trophy
involved with that.  We came up with the "Mr. Spellfire" travelling trophy.  It was first won by my son, Scott in the fall of 2002 when we first started it.  He
lost his defense to Robert Matos, who then lost it by default (he couldn't make the next tournament) to someone else....John Kapsh.  Yep, the guy that got
me into all this.  John was able to successfully defend the trophy and keep it.  Since he wasn't able to make my last tournament my nephew won it.  That is where
we stand until this spring (2005).

Jim has also introduced me to games like Hero Clix, Zombies and the Mage Knight series.  All are fun games.  Of them all I think I kind of liked Zombies the best
because it was such an outrageous game!

I have met other really neat guys at my tournaments as well.  Some of the names you might know, some you might not.  People like Glen Tobias, Stephen Thompson,
Mike "Big Mike" (sorry Mike, I can't remember your last name), Robert Matos and others.  All of these people belong to MAPS (Minnesota Area of Players
of Spellfire®).

Other things I like to do (briefly so as not to bore you too much):

Read:  subjects:  Fantasy, History, Mystery
Favorite authors:  Terry Brooks, David Eddings, Stephen Ambrose, Robin Cook, Robert Ludlem

Gaming:  Favorite Board Game:  Monopoly
Favorite Pen and Paper Game:  D&D, 2nd edition Star Wars
Favorite Computer genres:  Fantasy, WWII simulations

Computer:  I have a diploma (no A+ certificate, though) for computer repair.  I mostly repair
for myself or friends/family.

Well, that is me.  Like it or leave it.  Thanks for taking the time to view this page.