I'm a 72 year old, non-conforming Army veteran of 27 years. I've been gaming since I was in my early 20's. We won't discuss all the games I used to play on my TRS-80 Model 1 nor the games I would write for my Texas Instruments TI-99 Calculator. That aside, I'm married and have 5 children, 8 grandchildren, and 1 great grandchild. After my 27 years of active service, I took a job with the state of Ohio as a Telecommunications Manager and retired in 2022 with 22 years of service. My wife, the wonderful person that she is, supports all my hobbies BUT when she wants her time, let's just say I believe strongly in the saying "Happy Wife, Happy Life."

My favorite games are: Euro Truck Simulator 2, American Truck Simulator, Farming Simulator 22, Civilization V, Train Simulator Classic, Jurassic World Evolution, and Jurassic World Evolution 2. I also do World Building for RPGs and until the first of this year I was an avid Chess player. Health concerns have brought me to retirement in that arena.

I've been playing Euro Truck Simulator since it was first released in 2008. As an avid fan of Microsoft's Train Simulator at the time, I was quick to delve into that universe. We'll say I dabbled for many years using it as a break from Microsoft Train Simulator. My time was also very limited at the time due to my work-related commitments as well as supporting the mods that I was doing for MTS.

My interest in ETS2 and ATS peaked when my son introduced me to Twitch. While I had enjoyed playing very vanilla versions of both games it was just recently that my curiosity got the best of me and I started investigating the world of mods and services like TrucksBook, Trucky, and TruckerMP. Those last two may float away into the background if this new interface for Trucky isn't a major improvement and for TruckerMP, I just don't get the thrill of hundreds of people running around like chickens with their heads cut-off. There's also the inevitable arsehole who finds pleasure in intentionally crashing into people. The VTC world is interesting to me because it reminds me of the VRC (Virtual Railroad Company) that a friend of mine and I were running for several years which did the same thing with trains as VTCs do for trucks. We ran training classes, work order dispatcher, assigned locomotives, etc. I can see ways of doing similar things with VTCs and private servers.

Right now I'm trying to get a handle on the dispatch function so I can put together some realistic contracts. Too many of the contracts in ETS2 and ATS just don't make sense, pay way more than what you find in real life, and things like speed restrictions for WoT contracts, just take away from the realism that could be enjoyed in the game. For what it's worth, I don't understand the streamers I watch who don't want to follow driving etiquette, race down the road at extreme speeds, etc. Probably why they never make it to my follow list.

I hope to start streaming in the not-so-distance future. I'm putting together a new gaming system so I can stream using a two PC concept. Also need to do a little reallocation of space in my den so that everything fits comfortably. Along with that, I'm also looking at setting up a private server to work out the specifics on various VTC activities other than convoys. I've got to play around a little bit to get a better understanding of how private servers work and how mods, paid and private, are handled.

Well, this has rambled on long enough and probably more info than anyone really wants to read, so I'll stop here. If you want to find out more drop by my discord channel https://discord.gg/jdTAj2mBKN and say "Hi".