"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." -Confucius.

The first leg of the journey...

Mile 1 … Chicago, IL The act of moving is never fun.  It involves a lot of boxes, tape, and shoving things into spaces that they really can’t fit into.  If you find this fun, then let me know and I will put you to work the next time I move.

I do however enjoy road trips.  Several of my former coworkers from SteelSeries told me that I was crazy to drive to California, but I always feel a sense of accomplishment whenever I drive somewhere.  It probably comes from my younger days when I used to frequently drive to gaming tournaments.  If my job at Riot doesn’t work out, then I will take a gig as a cross country truck driver ;)

Although, I lived in Chicago for only a year, I have always considered it to be my home away from home.  I have had many fond memories of Chicago over the years.  In High School, my friends and I would make the 2 hour trip on a monthly basis just to find good Korean BBQ.  Right after college, I literally spent 9 months living in 3 different hotels when I was an IT consultant.  That might not sound like fun, but I earned so many hotel reward points that all of the staff there pretty much had to treat me like a rock star.  It didn’t last though as I was relegated to the status of a one hit wonder as soon as my points ran out. My fondest memory of Chicago was the 2007 Fire & Ice tournament.  Over 120 DotA players from 7 different countries gathered in Chicago during the week before Christmas to compete and hangout.   Thankfully there wasn’t much snow and the tournament ran on schedule.  My favorite part of that event as with all events is meeting people that you’ve competed against for months… and hoping that they aren’t as big of a troll in real life as they are on forums.   I hope that the epic nights filled with deep dish pizza and ggs will be remembered by the attendees for years to come.

Someday I’d like to return to the Windy City and host another event, but for now I say farewell to Chicago.

Top: My roommate Pu is devastated to hear that I am leaving.  Bottom: DotA Players invade Chicago in 2007.

Mile 303 … St. Louis, MO

 I can’t help but stare in amazement at the Gateway Arch every time that I drive through St. Louis.   If there were a really lame website dedicated to underappreciated American monuments, then I’d hope that the Gateway Arch was ranked #1.  The arch is known as “The Gateway to the West” and has always held a lot of significance for me.  My Grandparents lived in St. Louis for many years since my Grandfather worked for the St. Louis Cardinals and therefore I found myself visiting the Arch often as a kid.

The Gateway to the West!

I come from a lineage of self admitted sports fanatics.  In addition to working for the Cardinals, my Grandfather worked for the US Bowling Congress in Milwaukee.  My father ruthlessly strikes fear in local little league baseball and softball teams in the Southeastern Wisconsin area.  He’s won nearly a dozen seasonal championships and coached nearly 50 sessions of baseball and softball teams.  Needless to say we all enjoy fantasy sports and spend most of our holiday time bragging about all of the “friendly wagers” that we have won over the past year.

eSports seems to be a perfect marriage for someone with an interest competitive sports and computers.  Initially, I was shocked to learn that many successful eSports figures were also competitive at something else in their life, but over time I realized the obvious... that competitive people compete at e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g … even something as “silly” as a computer game.

Although not everyone picks up games competitively, I am interested in hearing how people first got involved in gaming.  We all have our gateways.