msaario -> (9/24/2002 3:44:14 AM)
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The story of my life in 200 words or so... ok, let's give it a shot. I won't be posting often, because... My wife and I are having our first baby in two months (my second)... We've been married a year next Sunday! We won't have a big celebration due to her condition, though. I am 33 years of age, about 30 of that has been wargaming, models, toy soldiers, war books, military comic books and stuff. However, I am anti-military - but no politics here...! We are building a house outside Helsinki area and today the digger hit the ground for the first time, whohooo! During the days I work for a largish, multinational firm as an IT security specialist. During the summer I passed a professional exam (CISA) that kept me really busy last Spring. Well, anyway, I am going back the history sort of the wrong way, but it seems easier like that. I spent two and half years outside Los Angeles (Thousand Oaks), first studying in a college (CLU) and then working for a year or so. Got a great deal of friends around the world and have since visited a lot of them. That brings me to my other passion (not very active right now as you might guess from reading above) - travelling. I have had the opportunity to go around the globe a bit. In addition to the usual European travels (too many to even remember, 30+?), I've been in the States say 10-15 times for business or pleasure, Canada, Mexico, South Africa, Namibia, Australia, NZ, Fiji, Japan, China, HK, South Korea a couple of times (once for a wedding at the Seoul Naval Academy), Singapore & surrounding areas and so forth. I have friends in almost all these countries. I started my gaming with some funky pong game who knows when in early 80s or late 70s. Ever since I've had dozens of machines from Mattel Intellivision to Apple IIe to 286 PC to C64 to Atari XL to Amiga to Atari ST to.... well, you get the point. I've always been playing wargames. The first ones were Midway Campaign on Apple, maybe something on Mattel, too. Gary Grigsby is no 1 and there is no competition. Close Combat and some other games are great, but Gary somehow always pulls it off. WWII flight sims are great too, I am currently playing IL-2, even though I am not particularly fond of it (great sim, but lousy game). Microsoft Combat Flight sims are my favorites, too. I only have one buddy who also likes wargames, but we see each other quite seldom. He wasn't too impressed about UV but wants to wait for the WitP, so maybe then we can arrange some gaming sessions. I doubt I can play PBEM as my schedules are so irregular that I never know when I have the time or energy to do another turn (or maybe I am just scared of having my bu*t kicked). I brought a Mustang with me from the US (you know we have a ridiculous car tax here - got my car tax free but the law has been changed since). We have an active community of people driving American cars in Finland and our club is one of the biggest, I am just stepping down as I have no time to continue being an active member. We arrange meetings in cruising nights, go for a weekend drive etc. I also have enjoyed taking my car to the track for some road racing. It's fun, fairly safe and you don't need to race on the streets! I used to do that when I was younger and we were hitting 200+ kmh almost every weekend. Luckily we had no big accidents and have grown up ever since. I also like to read and browse war books. I have a sizable collection of WWII books - Finnish wars against the Russians, Germans in different theatres, Japanese in the Pacific and so forth. I also collect good war movies, however, they are hard to find and I hate the DVDs being so expensive (overpriced). I lay my hands on every decent movie about the Romans, too. --Mikko
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