Reading Rainbow was like watching Discovery Channel for kids. I always had fun watching, and I always learned something. Among a few other influences, Reading Rainbow was a major force in my enjoyment of reading. It made me interested in books, and thats a very good place to be. My dad taught me to read, and my parents made sure we had loads of books, and Reading Rainbow helped insure that I stayed interested in reading.

Reading Rainbow also played an interesting role in the way I grew up viewing race. I can’t remember the first time I was aware of racism, but it certainly wasn’t early. Like I said, Levar Burton was an early idol, a role model to me. I don’t remember considering that he was black, just that he was a cool guy who liked books. I didn’t know much about Star Trek, but I knew Geordie LaForge was my favorite character, thanks entirely to Reading Rainbow. And hey, now I get to follow the guy on Twitter. So as they say, I’ve come full circle.

Influences is a series of articles about the things, ideas, and people that helped to shape who I am today.

I have very fond memories of going out to the shed at night and ‘helping’ my dad build various things. We built a sailboat once, which I played with in the bathtub for a very long time. As great as that ship was, the best thing we ever built was a very simple wall for army men to hide behind. This wall, along with other pieces like it, saw endless play. I’ll talk army men later, but it is worth saying that the wood pieces greatly augmented my imagination with the plastic soldiers.

Dad’s workshop was the first cache of wood I had to work with, and really my first experience building things. I don’t know how much of an impact working in that shop has had on my creativity, but it certainly has had some effect. Today I love DIY projects, and my very first experience with that sort of thing definitely came from working in Dad’s shop.

Influences is a series of articles about the things, ideas, and people that helped to shape who I am today.

Back in 2000 my family had lunch at some friends house, and after lunch I ended up looking on as their son played Age of Empires 2. At the time I hadn’t played any strategy games on the PC, save for advanced Risk, and AoE2 Totally blew me away. I was still using a Windows 95 computer then, and after a bit of research, discovered that AoE2 wouldn’t run very well on that computer. I made the decision to buy the original Age of Empires upon this discovery, and waited patiently for it to arrive from Amazon.

My first experience with the game was pure bliss. It had so much depth, so much polish, that I kept playing for hours oblivious to time. Age of Empires started me thinking about strategy, got me interested in ancient civilizations, and gave RTS games a special place in my mind.

The single-player campaign wasn’t great, even when I didn’t have a decade’s worth of games to compare it against. What really made AoE stick for me was skirmishes and the map editor. I probably spent more time creating scenarios in the game than playing them. I basically knew what every single unit, tree, or wall was called, how it looked, and where I wanted it on my maps. I made some really cool scenarios back then. The things I learned and did in AoE carried over to other games, and continue to influence how I think about RTS titles.

Influences is a series of articles about the things, ideas, and people that helped to shape who I am today.

My first Lego set was a fire truck, complete with a winch. I can’t recall exactly when I got that particular set, but I remember playing with it while watching the evening news with my dad. I was probably 3 or 4, and that means I’ve had at least 16 years with Legos. Over the years I played with Legos more than just about anything else, and on occasion I still build things, like my iPod dock.

Legos are responsible for really building my imagination, interest in architecture, and allowing me to play by creating tangible things. I recreated countless scenes and situations with Legos; everything from epic spaceship battles to castles and knights found its way out of my head and into the Legos I built. Something about the core way Lego bricks are assembled really clicked in my head, and I still have Legos as a mental image when think about construction. I can’t believe I was even given more Legos considering the massive amount of time I called a parent over to check out my latest creation. Basically, Legos are a great start for this column, because they were an awesome toy to start with.

Influences is a series of articles about the things, ideas, and people that helped to shape who I am today.