- got pictured (and referred to as computer whiz) in the local paper when the high school bought its first computer - A Commodore PET
- wrote BASIC programs on the display model TRS-80 (with a whole 16KB of RAM) for the local Radio Shack because the salesman couldn’t figure it out
- had the handle “BookWorm” when I was 8 and my Dad had CB and short wave radios
- devised an objective, weighted scoring mechanism for inter-troop competitions when in scouts (it was waaaay too geeky for them)
- the second best job I ever had was working in a book-store when I was 13 (see below for the best-job)
- got beat up a lot for being weird
- best marks in high-school were chemistry and philosophy
- had discussions on the ethereal nature of many aspects of military training while doing PT on artillery officer training
- insisted on teaching every ballistics course I could by convincing my CO that no one else could make it “fun” to learn the math behind blowing things up
- fell in love for my (future) wife after finding out she was the only other person I knew who owned a computer (an 8086 running DR-DOS (not MS-DOS)) (funny I can remember that but not our anniversary) :smack: (I seldom dated before I met her – now we date all the time!)
- after returning to the country after our honey-moon, I impressed the customs agent when I calculated the value of our declared purchases and did the foreign exchange calculations to two decimal places and wrote “approx” since the airplane ride was rough and I might have made a mistake
- corrected the obstetrician on the odds of having di-zygotic versus mono-zygotic twins
- my co-proudest moment as a dad was when my 5-year old son told me that he loved me because I taught him chess
- my other co-proudest moment as a dad was when my 5-year old daughter told me that she thought I was cool because I taught her how a rocket works
- was comforted by the fact that the only thing better than being a geek was having a geek wife when it was she who recently suggested we go out and buy the board game version of Civilization and also Starfarers of Catan (waay cool)
- my largest source of job-satisfaction working for a world-class telecom firm is that I work with plenty of geeks and having a PhD and wearing sandals and socks is no big deal because there are plenty of them. (that’s not me - but it’s cool working with people who are even geekier than me). Also, the lunch-time conversations are pretty cool
- I annoy my Pastor to no end by pestering him with detailed theological questions every time I see him
- I actually read, and sometimes post, to message boards like this
Okay, now I feel more comfortable.
You’ll notice I distinguished “having my own kingdom” from “worldbuilding.” I’ve done both.
When I was 14, I was inspired by the Dope column on how to start your own country, and ordered the book in question, and declared independence and drew up the constitution of the Serene and Excellent Kingdom of Nikhedonia. Territory: my house, plus colonial claims on several uninhabited localities in the South Pacific (the Nabobate of the Nikhedon Islands).
I designed all the coats of arms (I was interested in heraldry), issued currency and postage stamps, entered into diplomatic relations with other micronations, designated ministries, and held regular Grand Councils (I was a constitutional monarch).
I had about 30 or 35 citizens by the time I lost interest, most of whom were actually adults. They were invited to add their houses as territorial colonies to the Kingdom (some such colonies as Philharmonia, the State of Frenzy, and the Duchy of Earl).
My biggest diplomatic coup was when someone in England joined; he sent me a cheque addressed to the “Nikhedonian Ministry of Immigration,” which my bank rejected. I marched down there with constitution and lawbook in hand proving that (in addition to being King) I was also the Minister of Immigration and entitled to cash the cheque. The bank lady gave me a Hard Look, and then authorized the deposit. I was terribly impressed with myself.
It was a lot of fun while it lasted.
This can be distinguished from worldbuilding, in that when I worldbuild I don’t actually pretend that the thing exists, so it has more in common with writing fiction than with role-playing.
I’ve worked on three main projects. The first one was in about 2000, when I designed a city called Minervia, an island city supposed to be set somewhere on the Canadian west coast. I’d always liked SimCity, and I finally started drawing it out when I realized that SimCity would never be as flexible as my imagination.
I plotted the whole thing out on many many sheets of graph paper. At the time I was working at my university’s copy shop, so I had access to as much free photocopying as I wanted, which was a boon to the project. I have the whole city plan in a binder on my shelf.
The most difficult thing was naming all the streets. At one point I gave up on finding individual names for all of them and ran down the list of Nobel Prize winners. That actually did in a pretty hefty chunk of the city.
The next project was a country in an alternative world. I had started with the conlanguage, and worked it out into a design for the political system of the entire country (Shrislyaria, it was called), as well as a great deal of cultural material. I had started to do a country map and one for the capital city, and did a fair amount of linguistics research regarding the language. I didn’t get very far but I often think of returning to it.
The current project is called La Luz, which I started while I was studying in Spain (it’s in the same spiral, 4mm, A4 graph paper notebook I bought in a dollar store in Valladolid.) It’s the capital of a North American country, a former Spanish colony called Mar de Cristal (named after a Madrid metro station, actually 
). An interesting feature is that part of the metropolitan area is a coastal island that is an overseas department of France, called Île Saint-Jude.
Anyway… I like worldbuilding 
Over the past month or so, I’ve been stoking my megalomaniacal tendencies by redrawing the world’s borders in my paint program. I have about ten different worlds saved at this point. ;j
PUH-FIFFLE!
I have been working on a plan (yes, a cunning one) that will enable me to solve the 8 bun 10 wiener problem once and for all.
Then, the REAL world* will be mine, all mine!
*see what happens when a paranoid megalomaniac stops playing God, and gets real.