Introducing Myself

[FaceStab]

Hey all, my name is Ray. I'm a 28 year old stay-at-home dad homeschooling 2 kids. I'm also a part-time commission painter for miniatures (Warhammer 40k, things like that), and I have been gaming all my life.

I've always loved writing, and in college I was the only student in 4 or 5 years who had chosen to do the writing track for an English degree. I tutored several writing classes at a homeschool Network, but I never did much writing. This year, however, I decided to really challenge myself as a writer and a gamer. On January 1st I decided to blog every single day about something related to gaming, and what a journey it's been!

With my interests including video games, board games, tabletop miniatures games, D&D, and whatever other geeky thing strikes my fancy, I still haven't missed a day! It has really stretched me as a gamer, and I've really enjoyed writing posts that go deeper in to the mentality of myself and other gamers. My most popular series was an early one that discussed the pros and cons of being a win-at-all-costs player, and since then I've really enjoyed digging deeper in to the "why" of gaming.

As for my gaming life... where do I start? I was born the same year the NES dropped in North America, and I grew up with a controller in my hand (or mouth, depending on my age). My gaming history involved everything but pure racing or sports games, with competitive shooters, coop games, action/adventure, and any RPGs being my go-to genres. But hey, as long as it's not Forza or Madden I will play anything with a smile on my face!

I have done a bit of online PC gaming, and I'm guessing I met TPG back in my Left 4 Dead days. My friends have slowly started shifting to PC gaming (halleluah!), so I'm excited to be able to enjoy online games on Xbox One and PC in the coming months. I'm most excited about the new wave of competitive shooters, Watch Dogs, Witcher 3, and anything that lets me kill a zombie.

I was really excited when I learned about the opportunity to write for another website. This year I've not only been writing for a small audience, I've even been giving things away just to thank them for reading! The idea that my words could be worth something is an excitement I haven't had since my days in college when I dreamed being a writer or editor. Kudos to TPG for giving me an opportunity to write about what I love!

[Alundil]

Welcome to TPG Ray . This is one of the better intro posts. Making some of these others look like slackers. :-D

There can be only one

[FaceStab]

I appreciate that, Alundil!