Feels Luna by the paws...

Bonus: now, paycheck in hand, I went "hey... I can buy my own Lego and such..." and I understand my parents going "it's so expensive"

Fast forward: I'm a backend engineer and have yet to loose the addiction... Both to code, and to roller coasters :P (there was a 2-4 year period where I wanted to be a roller coaster engineer... But I found little resources on how, and chose normal software as the "hold over")

I followed along, I started trying to do my own thing, and I had found a new addiction. Puzzles, problem solving, etc. And I could get my friends to try it. I sucked at UIs, so I did all the backend stuff (game engine)

Then one day, I learned about Microsoft XNA. I was still over my head... Luckily I found some college student who was learning to code and decided to make a game and record the process. Like... "the website says to download an... eye dee e. Uh... There's 5 options?" level of learning.

The one that stood out: Roller Coaster Tycoon. I quickly became addicted. It also was one of my first video games. Well... What are these other video games? Can I make my own? My mother was a programmer and gave me her old MS BASIC books. I... Didn't get very far.

One year, my parents ran out of time and couldn't get me there. Christmas, the toy I really wanted wasn't there and I was devastated. I blamed not being able to mail the letter. My parents decided to calm my whining at Costco by saying I could get one video game (so long as it worked on Windows ME)

(Took another 40 years to realize: computers never taught me shit. Computer programming INCENTIVIZED LEARNING in a way that my teachers never could. I absorbed math and science as a means to an end.)