Alright, since the 20Q on where I work finished, there's no reason to hold off on this anymore. I'm thirtysomething, I grew up near Houston and now live near Austin working for IBM as development support on AIX. Growing up, I was the typical good at school computer nerd type. College ended up being the exact opposite experience from what most were expecting for me - including me. After a bit of a juggle to actually find a college (I only bothered to apply to Rice and CalTech at the deadline, and it was a particularly competitive year for Rice and I managed to get refused by both) I finally settled on Case Western Reserve University. Academically, I just never got motivated, but socially, I grew quite a bit - joined a fraternity, got a few girls, learned how not to be a total retard in social situations, etc. So after three years of college, I left (just days before they kicked me out, I maintain) and moved back home getting a job working for my parents. They own a wholesale foral shop, and I was brought on to help manage and update the computer systems. It was a decent enough job as a sysadmin for a few years, but there wasn't much future to it, as I knew I have no desire to own my own business - especially a non-technical field like wholesale flowers. After about two years of this, my fiancee at the time decided she was going to run off with a married friend of ours, and my whole life shifted. A few months later I realized that all my friends had left Houston and I started spending more time in Austin, where I met a girl. I finally took the plunge and moved to Austin in 1998, getting a job at IBM as a contractor through a friend of mine. In '99, the girl left me (adios fiancee #2); in 2000, I met a girl sort of online - we met face to face, but we had a lot of the same online friends (who we also knew face to face, you know how it goes). A year later we were dating, and a year after that we were married (fiancee #3, for those playing along at home). And in the summer of '04, my son was born.
I've always been a huge gameplayer, and it runs in my family on both sides. I remember going to visit my great-grandparents and playing yatzee or cribbage with them; my paternal grandfather was a pretty darn good gin player in his day (I ran across several of his trophies he'd tossed in his basement). My maternal grandfather not only used to hustle Euchre for extra $$ during WWII, but would sit around the kitchen table and play board games like Risk or Conspiracy. He'd also sit on the floor with us and play Nintendo - anything for a gaming fix. I'm the same way - growing up my friends and I would play hearts or spades for 10 hours at a time; countless RPGs, computer games, board games, whatever we could find. Today is no different - My wife and I buy each other board games for xmas each year so we have something new to play for the next year. I've been playing Magic:TG since about a year after it came out, and I've played off and on since. I qualified for a Pro Tour in France, and took the opportunity
to propose to my wife. (Second place story - 1st was a trip to Germany that I couldn't have taken, so 2nd was my goal anyways)
Despite all this, I don't play much poker. Live options in Texas are pretty much none, except for a nickel/dime limit game I have at my house for grins. I've played some live poker on trips to Vegas and California, but not more than about 10 hours total. I haven't taken the plunge to playing online for real monies yet, and I'm not sure I'll ever bother. I have had two players from the home game start playing online and making a profit - one has taken his initial $100 roll from about 6 months ago and is now playing a 3/6 game and using the profits to make his car payment each month, so maybe the home game isn't so bad (okay, it really is bad, no joke). Of course, not playing much competitive poker doesn't mean I don't read a lot about poker, which is how I found this site. Since I'd heard of Mafia/WW, but never really played it before (it's hard to get a large group together for a game like that) finding POG was only a matter of time. I am, of course, hooked.