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Introduction

Welcome to my site, I trust you will enjoy your stay. I’m currently a student pursuing an PhD in Computer Science at the University of New Hampshire. I will graduate in 2013. I received a B.Sc. in Computer Science from UNH in 2009. My professional interests include software engineering/design, artificial intelligence, and computer networking.

I would like to first welcome all my visitors to my site. If you are a recruiter I would love to hear from you. I have my resume on here so feel free to have a look around. I am not currently seeking employment but I always love to hear from people nonetheless. If you are an old friend looking to reconnect feel free to shoot me an email or add me on Facebook. If I am in your city or area sometime it would be great to hang out and catch up. Shoot me an email anytime. If you are a reader from one of the websites I work at/have worked at welcome and please enjoy what you read.

Being in school certainly takes up most of my time but I still love taking time to enjoy life. I have a side interest in photography and while I am certainly not a professional I still enjoy it. My personal favorite is shooting pictures of sunsets/sunrises. I have some of my better pictures on my Google Picasa website so feel free to look around. Of course the album entitled my favorites is where I suggest you start. I shoot with a Cannon Digital Rebel XTi with a Signal f/2.4 as my primary lens

I also love kayaking when I can. Any place that has a little current is great. Last but not least I love traveling. Below you will find a list of the travels I have gone on so far. Toping my list of places that I want to go are Greece, Rome, Egypt, and England.

The University of New Hampshire’s Interoperability Laboratory employs me where I work on the cutting edge of networking technology. I work in both the Ethernet Switching and IP Routing Consortiums as research and development. I have spearheaded the IOL's development of both a TRILL and SPB(801.2aq) test programs.

I also work at GameReplays.org, the premier RTS media and community site on the web, where I am an advisor. I previously was the administrator in charge of content publication and managing volunteer staff on the Starcraft 2 portal. I have worked with online communities for a number of years, having formerly been a senior staffer at Heaven Games involved in the Age of Empires III and Empire Earth portals. I have also been ranked 1st in the U.S. in Age of Empires III.

Some other experiences include working as a referee at the 2007 World Cyber Games Grand Final in Seattle WA and the 2008 World Cyber Games Grand Final in Cologne Germany, playtesting on Saturdays at Stainless Steel Studios, and the Empire Earth II and III Universities in Los Angeles CA. I have worked with eSport Services as an administrator in Los Angeles CA. Please see my resume for more details.

As of December 23rd 2009 am engaged to Amanda Lizotte, the love of my life! We will be getting married at the Mount Washington Hotel on June 4th 2011.

About my Site

The purpose of this site is to provide a platform for me to talk about myself and a place for me to work with web technologies. Essentially consider this site my online resume and portfolio. This website is based on the following technologies: XHTML, C#, MYSQL, JavaScript, XML, LINQ, RSS, AJAX, and CSS. It use to use PHP and Java but I no longer utilize them on the site.

Where I've Been

I love travelling and so I thought I would record some of my trips. I am sure I am missing so but here is the ones I could remember. This serves as a personal record for myself more than anything else. Also, I have lived in the New Hampshire and Massachusetts area my whole life.

Location	Year	Travel Method	Reason
Michigan/Minnesota	June 1994	Car	Visiting Parents Friend
Fort Lauderdale/Keywest/Miama, Florida	Dec. 2001	Plane	Visiting Gramma
Los Angeles, California	March 2005	Plane	EE2 University
Los Angeles, California	May 2007	Plane	EE3 University
Seattle, Washington	Oct. 2007	Plane	WCG Grand Final
Los Angelos/Irvine, California	April 2008	Plane	Blizzard/EA Coverage
Paris, France	June 2008	Plane	Blizzard WWI
Detroit, Michigan	Aug. 2008	Plane	Family Reunion
Los Angelos, California	Oct. 2008	Plane	WCG US Finals
Cologone/Frankford/Munich, Germany, DC	Nov. 2008	Plane	WCG Grand Final
Europe (Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Belgium, France, Austria, Switzerland)	July/August 2009	Plane	Vacation and 75th IETF
LA	August 2009	Plane	BlizzCon
New York City	September 2009	Plane	WCG USA National Final
Orlando Florida	March 2010	Plane	IEEE Plenary Meeting
Anaheim, California	March 2010	Plane	77th IETF
USA	Tentative Summer, 2010	Car	Cross Country Road Trip
Rome, Italy	Tentative Summer, 2011	Plane	Honeymoon

Random Facts

Interests

• Real Time Strategy Games
• Professional Gaming & ESports
• Artifical Intelligence
• History
• Photography
• Software Engineering
• Programming
• Online Communities
• Kayaking
• Traveling
• Economics/Finance
• Public Speaking

Favorite TV Shows

• Stargate
• Stargate: Atlantis
• Monk
• Psych
• Lost
• Babylon-5
• Burn Notice

Favorite Movies

• War Games
• The Swiss Family Robinson
• Lord of the Flies
• Next
• Shaweshank Redemption
• 21
• Contact

Favorite Books

• Bible
• Sun Tzu's The Art of War
• Neil Cavuto's More Than Money
• Reagan: In His Own Hand
• Moby Dick

Biography - From a Gaming Perspective

Here is a short biography of my life from a gaming perspective.

My Early Years

My life began in the suburbs of New Hampshire in the year 1986, the youngest in a family of six. I entered school in 1993 where I excelled in the sciences. During this period as my teachers would attest: I was known to be a creative and imaginative child, with an intense interest with the military. I still remember a game I made up called shipwreck I use to play in first grade. The game consisted of running back and forth on the playground dodging vicious whales, escaping the grip of a volcano on the verge of eruption, and fleeing a sinking vessel. Yes, it was a great childhood.

During my early years, I spent a large amount of time outside. My time indoors was taken up playing with Legos, where my brothers and I would set up massive legions to fight one another. The "civilization" I used as we played with Legos was the "Foresters," from which came my original online nickname, "Kingforester." My time outside was spent roaming the woods of New Hampshire, constructing fortresses, and engaging in play combat with my brothers. During the winter, we would construct multi-story snow forts. My first exposure to computer games was with a Windows 95 system. On this, I played an Oregon Trail game along with an American Civil War turn based strategy game. I also learned to program simple Q-Basic programs on this system. I made some text based adventure games and to this day I remember the nightmares of using GOTOs in my programming.

The Beginning of the End

As I grew older, we received a new Windows 98 system. The fateful moment was when I went over my friend's house where he introduced me to the original Command and Conquer. Soon I bought that game and after that, I bought Command and Conquer: Red Alert. I loved these games; however, it felt like they were missing something. I then played the demo to Age of Kings and well, I was hooked. In fact, that very first night my brothers and I got in trouble for staying up until ten, way past our bedtime. I loved this game so much because it took me back to the medieval ages that I had played in as the foresters. It took those inanimate soldiers and gave them life. Now I was the supreme commanders of massive armies. Another reason I loved Age of Kings was due to an interest in history that I had. I remember one school bus driver we had who was in fact going for his doctorate in history. He wanted to encourage the kids to pursue history and so he use to have little quizzes where he would give candy to those who could answer the trivia. To this day I must say he deepened my interest in history.

On November 10th 2000 my interest in Age of Kings led me to a fan site called Heaven Games. I began to play online where I did an 18-minute imperial age on the Yucatan map with Byzantium after which I pumped out Cataphracts and Trebuchets. Yes, I wasn't very skilled of a player back then.

This may come to your surprise but originally I was a scenario person. Back then, I spent most of my time in forums related to scenario design. I think that is one reason I am one of the few competitive oriented gamers that enjoys doing so much community related work. After a while, I moved on to Starcraft. My friends in the "Candia Geek Squad" loved it and I mainly played it with them off line. To this day, the balance of Starcraft amazes me. I think I would have to say Age of Kings is my favorite game of all time while Starcraft is the best game of all time. My first experience with Starcraft was one time when I went over to my friend’s house and played Starcraft on the Nintendo 64. Yes, that’s right, I played Starcraft on a console before the PC. I remember it was the map, Twilight Struggle, and we were complaining at how hard that map was to win.

From there I moved to Empire Earth where I focused mainly on scenario design. After Empire Earth, I moved on to Age of Mythology where once again I began in the scenario design crowd. I decided that my old username, "Kingforester" was a little childish and so on October 21st 2002 I created my "Mokon" account. I started with this account by maintaining the Official Eye Candy Thread.

Nevertheless, the world was a changing place. I remember being in gym class during September of 2001 doing leg presses with the radio mumbling in the background. I remember faintly hearing something about a plane crashing but I thought nothing of it. Suddenly my gym teacher came running in towards the radio. And well, as they say, the rest is history.

The Allure of Competitive Gaming

Back in Age of Mythology, I slowly began to drift more toward the competitive gaming side. Over the freshmen-sophomore summer, I remember playing AOM constantly. I began to improve slowly, finally reaching around 1700. On April 2nd 2003 I released, "A guide to Poseidon" on Heaven Games. This was an instant success and people loved it. While I was not that great of a player, it covered the basics in an easy to understand way. My involvement in the community led me to get to know some of the best players. I reached 1800 at the peak of my Age of Mythology career. For some personal reasons I left Age of Mythology.

After a while, I found Empires: Dawn of the Modern World. Here I broke into the competitive scene once again ranked 30th in the world with Germany. A civilization, who, those that played Empires know, had no chance against a good French or Russian player. This proves everyone needs to stop blaming balance for his or her losses. In Empires:DMW, I continued to write guides. I wrote one on hotkey usage and one of my personal favorites, a guide on the tactical use of a gas mortar infantry that was in the game. It is also worth mentioning that during this time I briefly was a member of Tsunami Studios.

Empires slowly began to die due to balance and gameplay problems so I moved on to a FPS, America's Army, along with playing SC a bit more. I reached 40 honor in this game, however, after a while it felt that something was missing in this game. First Person Shooters are nice, requiring plenty of skill but playing them made me feel as if I was missing the deeper strategically level of play that real time strategies provide.

Mean while in my life I was advancing through school with A's and B's. In my junior year of high school, I took on the most enjoyable and educational courses ever, that being one in which we played Civilization II. In this class, you developed a civilization, wrote about it, and then played it out in the game. I wrote hundreds of pages during this class, and I would recommend it to any school system. It was enjoyable and yet a challenge. Kids who would have failed any other course that made them write so much, passed with quality papers simply because the way the subject captured them. This class was interesting. Using the simple laws of warfare, I was able to defeat the other students. I had barely even played the game in the past, but by the end of the year, it was my tanks against catapults.

Working with the Industry

Back into the gaming world, I eagerly awaited Empire Earth II. I was able to gain an interview with the president of Mad Doc, and later, because of my involvement in the RTS community I was selected along with 16 other people to attend EEII University This was a symposium on the game held in Los Angeles. At this event, I met Soccy and TGE, and afterwards they asked me once again to work at Heaven Games. I had been asked back in the AOM period but I declined at the time. This time I said yes and so I became staff at EE2H. Empire Earth II did not do that well in the multiplayer realm, however, due to engine performance problems and balance issues. I did however go down to the Mad Doc offices in Lawrence, MA and I interviewed various members of the team along with ODA for Heaven Games. Soon after this with the launch of Rise and Fall Heaven, I was summoned to go down to Cambridge, MA to interview SSSI. So the day before my graduation from high school I went down and interview them along with Zen and Chonaman.

After this SSSI invited me down to become a "Saturday Playtester". Of course, I accepted and I was able to preview Rise and Fall. If you look in the credits of Rise and Fall you will see my name as a Saturday Playtester. Pretty cool if you ask me. I then took a short stunt in Empires once again but then Age of Empires III was released. At the beginning of this game, I made a deal with myself that I would rank in the top 100. This, even to my own surprise, I was able to do. My best rank was 7th in the world but normally I ranked 25-50th. I even attained the number one rank in the United States. As I was playing during this period, I wrote a 256-page guide on how an expert plays. I decided to write this guide more on the conceptual level then the specific strategy level, and from the people who have commented on the guide, it seems it has been a success. The sales have born its success out as well. Along with this, I began to publish a newsletter, which came out around once a month. One of my favorite memories of AoE3 was being the head administrator for the Ensemble Studios hosted New World Tournament at Heaven Games. In 2005 I also previewed Shattered Unions.

In my real life I started to pursue a degree in Computer Science. A major I absolutely adore. You know you are in the right major when you love doing your homework. I would like to extend a very warm thank you to all the various organizations that have helped me as I am pursing this degree by giving me scholarships. I could not do it without them. In May 2006, I was also hired at the UNH Interoperability Laboratory. Here I test networking equipment for various vendors. It has been a wonderful job.

Back to the world of gaming, the LA Times interviewed me about my love off history and video games. Nevertheless, as all games do, Age of Empires III slowly started to fade though. With Empire Earth III announced, I was once again flown out to Los Angeles for another media preview event. I was then selected for the WIC and EE3 Alphas. I then resigned my position at Heaven Games to take up a new position heading up GameReplays.Org's Starcraft II Portal. Starcraft 2 is a game that has me tremendously excited. Its competitive gaming potential is just so astoundingly high. After working at GameReplays for around five months I was promoted to Global Administrator, where I was once again tasking with managing the Starcraft 2 portal.

Through GameReplays I have had several great opportunities. First, in October of 2007 I flew out to Seattle Washington to referee Age of Empires 3 in the World Cyber Games Grand Final. This was great since I had not been active in the AOE3 scene for over a year then and it allowed me meet up with some of the people I knew from my time playing competitively. In 2008 through my work at GameReplays I was given a chance to visit Blizzard Entertainment and Electronic Arts. Later in June of that year I went to Blizzard Entertainment's World Wide Invitational in Paris France to cover the event as press. I had a great time there and had a few days to tour the city as well. In October 2008 I flew out to Los Angeles again to work with E-Sport Services at the USA World Cyber Games National Final, part of the E4All convention. Finally, I traveled to Cologne, Germany in November to help out in the 2008 World Cyber Games Grand Final.

The Future

What does the future hold? I am looking forward to Starcraft 2 and am still working at GameReplays. I am now going for my PhD in Computer Science After that I will seek employment in industry. This is just the beginning and I can't wait to see what lies down the river we call life.

The Most Important Topic

Before I go there is one other area that is very important to me. I love competitive gaming, programming, and many other areas but my personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ comes before everything. I have been a born again Christian since I was five. I am not one that holds to a denomination, but rather I firmly believe that the bible has the final say. For those of you who are not born again I ask you to consider nature. Take a look at the world around us. Do you really believe it came about by random chance? God created the world, man sinned, and God sent his Son by his grace. It is by his grace alone we can be saved if we place our faith in him. Even the best among us are nothing compared to the infinite and even the worst among us are equivalent to the best when compared to the infinite. Our lives are but the dash in between two dates on stone. Think about the time after that last date while you can, or spend an eternity in regret.

Let me end with my favorite quote from a fellow INTJ, Sir. Isaac Newton. This is the true spirit of any RTS Expert!

"I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."

Do not look at the dash between the two dates, but look at the vast eternity before and after.