About Me
Who is this Steve guy anyway?
Roughly 25 years ago a guy named Jim got me and him in trouble in math class. I was the new kid in town and it was something like the second week of school at the new school. Jim was sitting in front of me and he kept turning around to talk to me. I think it was a fantasy book on my desk that spurred the conversation. Turned out he was an avid fan of fantasy as well as being a very sociable guy. At some point he asked me if I’d ever heard of D&D. I said yes, but I had never played it. I was interested though. That is pretty much where the whispered conversation ended.
See our math instructor at the time was not real pleased by the two guys at the back of his class who were not paying any attention to him. We were promptly informed that we would spend the school recess period in detention that day. This of course, was fine with Jim. He had plans before the class even ended. You see, he had a copy of the D&D Player’s Handbook and the DM’s Guide in his backpack and a bunch of funny dice. After lunch, when we reported to detention, Jim had a very short adventure ready to go, complete with a couple of premade characters. So we sat in detention for that hour (supposedly being punished by being kept from our peers) and played AD&D. That was my introduction to gaming and I have been hooked ever since. Jim, by the way is one of my best friends to this day. Though my career, the distance between where we live, and all of the other circumstances of life keep me from contacting him often, Jim will always be a best friend. And at this point, because he got us both a detention long ago, I will always be a gamer.
Since then I have played a little bit of everything, wargames, board games, card games, classic games, PC games… if it’s a game, I will probably be willing to give it a try. RPGs and board / tabletop games are the big ones for me though. My favorite RPGs (in no particular order) are Shadowrun, 2300 AD, Twilight 2000, D&D, Darwin’s World, Call of Cthulhu, Gamma World, and All Flesh Must Be Eaten. For board games, I think Runebound, Zombies, Betrayal at House on the Hill, Arkham Horror, Civilization, Gladiator, Circus Maximus, and Car Wars come to mind (though there are many more). The list could go on forever if I keep adding wargames, cardgames, and etc. Basically, I like games. Enough said on that.
Currently, in my daytime career I am a professional librarian working as a circulation manager at a local public library branch. Contrary to popular belief, this has nothing to do with sitting around reading books all day. I like the job and I wouldn’t want to give it up. But the pay, how would I say this politely, well the pay sucks. Thus, by night (and day when I am available) I am half of the ownership behind G-Squared Collectibles & Hobbies. The other part, for the curious out there, is my wonderful and multitalented wife who I could not get by without (either personally or professionally). From g2’s perspective she is our graphic designer, shipping specialist, chief finance officer, etc – it’s a running joke we have going. When you run your own business you get to do everything from clean the floor to make executive decisions, so you can claim whatever title you want at the minute.
Our little family business was supposed to be just that, little. But over five years we have watched it grow far beyond what we thought it would be originally. That fact came home to me this year when I introduced myself to a guy at Origins who said, “G-Squared? I know you guys!” Somewhere along the line, I am very proud to say, we developed a reputation as THE online game shop with customer service and today we routinely ship product to loyal customers on six of the seven continents (no one from any of the Antarctica research stations has ever ordered from us yet, so I can’t claim seven – for now). It’s been enjoyable and tremendously satisfying watching this occur. This goes double when I think of all the game industry people who told us our online company would be dead within a year because online companies do not last. Sorry to disappoint, but we keep showing nothing but signs of growth. This year we even became one of the few pure online full retail members of GAMA. For those of you who have been our patrons, I cannot thank you enough for your repeat business and your faith in us as merchants. And for those of you distributors and game companies who saw the light and realized that online shops are here to stay regardless of how much we get portrayed as the downfall of all civilization in the game industry, you also have our gratitude and continued loyalty as future customers.
Besides being a gamer, I have a few other hobbies as well. Being a librarian, I do of course love books (which I try to fit in a bit of reading each day on breaks). I also am a fan of computers, everything from building to constantly tinkering around with upgrading or fixing some real (or imagined) performance issue with our PCs. And I discovered a love for photography in the past few years and though I am not great at it, I am learning. I look at some of the old pictures I took for our listings and I am horrified at this point. I so badly want to update these, but so far have not had time. It’s the same with the blog idea. I find I really enjoy writing, even just something plain like what the store just got in, but so far I have had limited time to get in to this. I’ve definitely got ideas though, so hang in there and from time to time check in. I doubt this blog will ever be a daily thing, but I will over time add some interesting stuff. This I assure you.
-Steve (11 Nov 2007)
