First Post of Blaugust: Heartlessgamer

 Welcome to Blaugust 2024!  This year many bloggers are participating in the “First Post of Blaugust” initiative. The idea is that for my very first Blaugust post this year I should take a bit of time and introduce myself and the blog.  As Tipa so quoted on my post yesterday "Once more into the breach, and damned be he who first cries "Hold! Enough!""

 First I think it is worth looking back at Blaugust 2023 (my first year doing Blaugust) and my "about me" posts on where the blog came from and how I became the gamer I am today.

• My Gaming History
• A masterpiece of a blog post and probably the most digging I've done in my memory banks in a very, very long time.
  
• So It Begins Again
• A look back at the decision close to 20 years ago to start a blog about MMOs (and other games)

 In explaining who I am and why I have this blog I always go back to my first blog post and pull forward this quote. 

This blog has officially started. It has been a process of thought pulling at my mind for a while. I play these games we call MMORPGs, but I don't even know if "play" is the correct word to describe it anymore. I live and breath these games. They are more than an escape from my mediocre life. Fun is no longer the driving factor. Social interaction with like minded nerds and geeks; people whom live through their in game characters as though it was version 2.0 of themselves.

 As I said last year this statement holds true all these years later and if you want nothing more than to know about the who and why of Heartlessgamer that is it.

 There is of course the personal side out in the real world as well which I tend not to share too much about but Blaugust is good a time as any to share some more about the real me:

• I am in my early 40s
• I have a family and two kids (14 and 5)
• I grew up next to Green Bay WI which is evident by the Packers posts on this blog
  
• I am retired from the military (6 years active, 14 years reserves)
• I am in senior management at a privately owned telecom company
• My other big hobby other than games is gardening