This is a story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down. I’d like to take a minute, just sit right there, I’ll tell you how I became… engaged to Christina!

Our story begins in September of 2002 on a summer day in Roseville, California. I was 18, fresh out of high school, and enjoying the time before I started college. I was working as a bagger at a local grocery store, which wasn’t terrible at the time, and I made good enough money to support my gaming habits. I had taken a trip to my local awesome mall (oh Galleria, how I miss you) and stopped in at my local GameStop, not really looking for anything in particular.

I don’t remember how or why, but I wound up purchasing Animal Crossing for my GameCube. I don’t think I knew much about it at the time except that people had compared it to the Sims (which I didn’t like), and you could play NES games in it. Maybe it was the fact that it was a game that came with its own memory card. Maybe it’s because I just loved my GameCube. Whatever the reason, I had no idea that that one action would shape the rest of my life.

I really dug Animal Crossing. It was fun and relaxing, and I enjoyed collecting everything from bugs to fish to clothing. I enjoyed upgrading and decorating my house. It was rad playing NES games on my Game Cube (I seriously lost hours to Pinball, no joke). I loved it. I loved it so much I dashed off to the internet to find out more about it.

My searches led me to Animal Crossing Ahead, a veritable compendium for everything there was to know about Animal Crossing. It was so in-depth that there were even guides on how to answer Rover’s questions to get the character face you liked. The information was great, but what kept me there was the forums.

Now, the only forum I had really been a part of before that was TheForce.net’s forums, which despite how many boards they had, all anyone really wanted to talk about was Star Wars. The Animal Crossing Forums had an Animal Crossing section, sure, but they had forums for entertainment discussion, a retro forum, a creativity boards… it was great. I registered and quickly started making friends.

By December I had been promoted to forum staff. Looking back now, I’m not really sure why. I broke a lot of rules that would keep someone from becoming staff (I asked for it CONSTANTLY) but hey, it all worked out. I got even closer with some really rad people, some of whom I’m still friends with to this day.

I did make some very close friends who I’ve since parted ways with. They’re not in my life now, but remembering those days will always make me smile.

Anyway, it was when Animal Crossing: Wild World was released for the Nintendo DS in late 2005 that things really got interesting for me.

The forums got a HUGE influx of new people. The portable nature of the new game, coupled with the Wi-Fi capabilities, really got people interested in the series and they flocked to the forums in spades. Many of them would wind up losing interest over the next few months, but the people who managed to branch out and make friends stuck around.

My close friends and I spent most nights on TeamSpeak, chatting with each other while we did other things. It seems lame now, but there weren’t a lot of people around me who had the same interests as me so it was nice to have a group of geeks to nerd out with, even if it was just over voice chat. I mean, I had real life friends I hung out with, even wound up moving in with later, but I enjoyed our nights on TeamSpeak.

One of my friends had started talking to a girl on the forums who went by the name Chrissii (two guesses who that is). This was back when MySpace was in its heyday, so I looked up some of her pictures. Typing that out, it seems really creepy. Whatever.

Anyway, I was immediately in awe of her. She was absolutely gorgeous, and she was a big geek just like us. The problem was, though, that I lived in California and she lived in Boston.
But we became friends and she wound up being a part of our group. Things were pretty normal for a couple of years, but her and I kept getting closer and closer. Eventually, it all kinda came out that we had feelings for each other, and we decided we were going to find some way to make it work.

In April of 2007, I had taken a week of vacation from work so I could relax and play Pokémon Diamond (yes, I used to take vacation based on game releases). Christina and I were talking on the phone Saturday night and we mentioned how much we wanted to see each other. I said “Well… why don’t I come out there this week?”

Keep in mind I am NOT an impulsive person. I am very much a plan-things-out, follow-the-schedule kind of guy. My hands started shaking after I said it and her folks gave the okay for me to stay there. It was real. I was going. I was on a plane Monday morning.

I remember stepping off the plane. It was late, close to midnight I think. I stepped out of the gate and I saw her waiting for me… it sounds SO lame and cheesy, but really, she took my breath away. No amount of pictures or phone calls could prepare me for how stunning she was in person.

We ran to each other, and she said “Oh my God, you’re so cute…” and we had our first kiss. First moment of the rest of my life.

The week was amazing. We wound up spending two hours on her kitchen floor using the Drawing tool on Pokémon. It was fate.

I went home and I knew I had to move. My mom had moved to Florida, my sister was in San Diego and I was living with my dad after my roommate had gotten engaged and moved out. I didn’t have a lot tying me to Roseville. She had her whole family in Boston.

We started making tentative plans. A few months later I came out for three weeks to basically live here, look for a job, things like that. In October of 2007, she flew to California to come to my friend’s wedding with me, and we flew back together.

I’ve been here almost three years, and while California is always going to be my home, and I miss it a lot from time to time, I’m now engaged to my soulmate.

And it’s all thanks to me buying Animal Crossing on a whim in September of 2002.