To Business!

Hello reader.  If your on this page it means your curious as to what "to business" is supposed to mean.

Well its simple.  I'm accounting for the possibility of blogging and doing YouTube as a means of making a living.  Its not a perfect plan, I'll grant you, but I'll never know if I don't try.

Now with that said.  I'm willing to play any game that is sent to me whether a table top RPG, board game, or video game.  But I'm not going to limit myself there.  I'm also willing to take on work outside of what I'm doing with my blog if a job is offered.

About Me

So lets get into my history a bit.  I am married with 2 children, (a girl and a boy).  I've worked in the private security industry for well over 16 years.  I started way back with Burns Security, then Pinkerton, AlliedBarton after them, and then Securitas Security.  I was content to do this line of work for a long time, but one of the last pieces of advice my dad tried to give me, before he passed away, was to "get the hell out of security work".

Its advice I wished I had taken at the time as it could have made life a lot easier for my family and I these days.  I do have a job where I work about 15hrs a week doing janitorial work.  I have been looking for additional work but haven't been very successful.  I also refuse to do security work ever again...I'm done with it.  With not many alternatives available I have chosen to go back to school, seeking a degree in Web Design & Development.

But what about gaming?  Well I remember my dad bringing home a Nintendo Entertainment system one day many years ago, I think I might have been 9 or 10 years old at the time.  I've pretty much been playing video games ever since.  It's a connection I shared with my dad.  He enjoyed playing games too, though he was more partial to playing strategy game than me.

As for the table top variety...well that got its start in Boy Scouts when I was maybe 13 or 14.  I've played AD&D, Shadowrun, and various Palladium Gaming products (Rifts/TMNT and other Strangeness, Robotech, Heroes Unlimited) over the years.  But it wasn't until I moved to Oregon that I got into playing Vampire the Masqurade (yes, I LARPed), and developed an extreme dislike for Palladium games (since they took a very rude and inconsiderate stance toward their fans posting anything online of house rules or things they made for their games).

D&D 3rd edition eventually came out, and it brought a new game system to play.  Following on its heels were all the various iterations of the Star Wars RPG.  But the game system that really took me for a ride and is by far my favorite these days is the Hero System, a game system my friends and I still use to this day.  Even with the inclusion of Savage Worlds, and D&D 5th Edition, Hero System is still my favorite.

With gaming came miniatures and painting them - something I've gotten better at over the years.  I can draw too, but I've never been that skilled.  If anything my hobbies have culminated in a love for writing and is one of my favorite hobbies next to video games, and tabletop RPG's.  I used to collect comics and action figures, but had to give up those hobbies due to loss of my security job.

My Skills

Well now just what can I do?  My skills are actually rather all over the place so I'll just kind of lay them out here.

• Analytical thinking.
• Conceptualization.
• Creative thinking.
• Computer Assembly (as in I know how to build a computer...though my skill level is - basic).
• 20/15 Vision with corrective lenses (I have a mild stigmatism, but 20/20 vision with that, so with glasses I see things as lot clearer, the difference is like watching something on TV in Standard Definition and High Definition).
• 15+ years of security experiences (this pertains to knowledge of policies/procedures/alarm monitoring/patrolling/CCTV use from working many different sites over the years).
• Professional document creation, and documentation practices
• Safety conscious.
• Customer service (Now a lot of people may not think it, but security work is a very customer service based job.  We are often interacting with a large number of people on a daily basis, assisting them in small or big way like holding a door open, or assisting someone in documenting safety concerns.  This extends to interacting with visitors to a company and even people who have no business with the company that may show up.  Sure we arent' selling anything, but its about the knowledge of how to properly interact with people in a professional and friendly way.)
• Basic computer knowledge (as in I can solve most common PC problems on my own).
• Multi-line Phone system operation (directing calls).
• Creative writing (this is a hobby of mine).
• Professional painting (as in painting homes/structures, beginner level of expertise though)
• Drawing/sculpting/painting (this is artwork that I know how to do, and yes I am out practice)
• Beta-Testing (I have played games in the past as part of a Beta-Test group, namely the now defunct Tabula Rasa MMORPG, where I never found an bugs while I was playing but I did put forth a few suggestions on game play improvements.)
• Miniature Painting (this is painting the mini's you get for table top RPG's).
• Blogging (my new hobby!)
• Video editing for YouTube (my other new hobby, though my skills here are still fairly basic).
• Proficient with the use of Microsoft Office Applications.
• Working part-time toward an Associates Degree in Web Design and Development (HTML, CSS, Javascript/jQuery, & PHP proficient).  I'm focusing my education toward the design side of things. I would apply these skill to the blog if it used cpanel, but it doesn't.

Job Offers

I am more than willing to look at any job offers that come my way.  However I do have some requirements.  First, I will not move as all my family is in the state that I'm in, so relocating is not an option.  Second, childcare is an important issue I have to deal with.  Both of my kids are in school during the day, but school is from 8am to 2:30pm, so working during the day would be limited to be with in those time, though I could also work from home after getting my kids from school.

Currently I work two part-time jobs, plus one job that is an on-call/only if needed job.  I am willing to send out a resume to serious job offers that come in and request one from me.

Looking to Sponsor Me?

So let me be up front on this.  I don't intend to do this for pay.  I like to share my creations and thoughts with others freely.  However, I'm no fool and would not turn away anyone who is willing to sponsor me for what I'm doing.  If this means I put ads on my blog here for you, or I walk around wearing a t-shirt, then I will.  I also don't mind getting free stuff and when I can, I would share this stuff with folks.

And just in case there's a drink company that may have an interest...I drink Pepsi, exclusively.

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Well that's it for the business angle of things...at least for now.  Please keep in mind that here in my blog all remarks and creations are of my own point of view and do not reflect those of any company or their products that I may mention.  Conversions of things to a game system are of my own making and are a fan based creation protected under Fair Use.