My friends have always said I should write a book about my adventures. Well, I promise that I will keep my posts to the readers digest version.
If you read my introduction you will learn that I started out as a game designer on the Atari console and in 1981 at age 19 I was able to buy my first house. But then piracy killed the market in 1984. I was newly married and wasn't smart with my finances and we lost almost everything and had to move into an apartment.
It took awhile to recover, creating many other titles for the IBM compatibles but then in 1991 I created a hit with QuickPay for Quicken and licensed it to Intuit.
In 3 short years I created QuickInvoice, QuickPay II and QuickPay III. This time though I was a little smarter in handling my finances and we paid cash for everything including the house you see above.
Everything was going great and I remember to this day that I was sitting on the couch just relaxing and being all content and at that point I felt it was time to leave. I told my wife what I felt and she said she too felt the same. But where?
The Caribbean!
What! To the Caribbean and live on a sailboat! We were both thinking that was crazy. So we tested the water and said ok, let's take sailing lessons and see if we can get our captains license and if we would even like it.
We then made arrangements and took a trip to St. Maarten for one week of lessons. Our captain reminded us of the movie Captain Ron. Sure enough we passed and had a great time.
As we were docking a nice sailboat comes in with a French couple and they were selling their boat and we bought it.
(Me testing out the French couple's boat)
Miracle after Miracle
We come back home and now we need to get rid of all this stuff in 2 months. One Sunday morning I wake up with the leading to take the jet skis to a certain street corner. Here it was the end of the season and you sure wouldn't think this was the best time.
I tell my wife that I'm going to go sell the jet skis today. She was surprised and I hooked them up and went. Once parked I stood by them for 30 minutes and someone drove up and bought them :)
Then I had a new Ford Explorer and my friend also had one he was selling and so I told him once he sells his let me know if anyone else calls. Sure enough he sold mine too.
Then we went to the realtor and told them we were needing to list our house and he said he recently divorced and needed a new place. He came over and love it and everything in it. So he bought it as is and we just boxed up 6 boxes worth of stuff and stored them at the mother-in-laws.
Wow! So it seems this is really going to happen.
This is when the real adventure starts....
Would you like to hear some more? Please show me that you are interested by giving me an upvote and maybe a comment. It is fun to actually write and relive this fantastic journey. Thanks Steemit :)
The thing that surprised me most was... piracy on Atari? I'm probably to young to grasp it, but how do you pirate game cartridges sufficiently to crash a market without the Internet as mainstream as it is now?
Also, please do keep us updated on your carribean experience :)
Thanks for commenting. This was the Atari 800 computer which had a floppy drive. We had developed some good ways to protect it but not good enough. When I got married in 1984 my new brother in law was 14 and he had every game of mine pirated. I thought that was funny actually. Back then royalties were 30% which was fantastic but then to try to combat piracy they went to cartridge which was an option but it was very expensive for them and they had me cut my royalties down to like $1. They didn't make it much longer.
Interesting. I was thinking the same thing when I read that part. It is like every console had a hard time fighting it. The Sega Dreamcast used these things called GVDs but someone figured out how to rip the games using the serial port that was on the Dreamcast and then break the games up in these 19mb .rar files and then people were downloading them and assembling all the files together to make an .iso and then could burn the game on a CD. I think kids don't really know the value of hard work and it takes years to realize the shock waves that can be created by doing this. That is my personal opinion and a comment war will likely start right about NOW! Great post!
Great and inspiring story, thabks for sharing and please share more. @nonlinearone
Inspiring story. Just upvoted and followed. The ease and synchronicities you experienced in selling your stuff and home sounds like the universe was conspiring to support you. I've had those moments. Just waiting for the big one.
Thank you for both your upvote and this comment. Yes it does seem that we were meant to go for sure. I can't wait to continue my story.
The Carribean as always been a place that I won't stop going. They've got beautiful beaches, the food is lovely, the night party at the beach and dance don't even get me started lol.
The atmosphere in the carribean is always lovely compared to the UK where I live and the people there are so kind to tourist. What more can you ask for.
Anyways nice post @mikehere just upvoted you
Oh absolutely. We traveled all around for one year and I can't wait to start telling our story. Thanks for the upvote.
I enjoyed your story and envy you. A lot! Up voted and looking for more story!
Oh, thank you. I enjoyed your story too. What I would love is that people would be inspired to take a chance and live life.
Your living the dream that I am setting in motion! I will 'follow' so keep me posted (the good and the bad!) - have a great time and hope to join you guys soon..
Wow that is great that you are also doing this! We had an experience of a lifetime for sure. We are back safe and sound after being on the boat for a year and living in the jungles of Puerto Rico for 4 years. I'm documenting our story here though for the first time. I'm breaking it up in parts because it is easier to read. I hope you continue to enjoy it and if you have any questions let me know. I'm also on steemit.chat with the username: mike
Please share more!
Thanks for sharing, looking forward to the next chapter!
I went back and read your introduction. You've had a fascinating life. I look forward to reading Part II and more of your stories.