The story of how I met Nikki

There are plenty of people who ask how Nikki and I met and although it can be quickly explained, I feel it is worth its own post. Nikki and I met on the Xbox Live Arcade title Marble Blast Ultra. To set up the first day we met there has to be back story on when I got my Xbox 360. I bought my original Xbox back in November of 2001 with Halo and knew I wanted to have games be a part of the rest of my life. It was sometime in there that I decided I would not pursue my first passion in life, music, but try to make my way into the games industry either via music or computer science. Turns out those two fields can cross more than you think but that is another post. Around 2005 I got my Xbox Live gamertag and fell in love with playing games online with people I consider best friends today even though I haven’t met most of them face to face. So I was definitely going to get the new system, and with some of my college food fund I prepaid in full for my Xbox 360 from gamestop. Unfortunately when November 2005 came around, backorder and continued logistic problems kept my upgrade out of my hands. One never truly knows why things happen but I do believe some things happen for a reason. I finally got my new Xbox on January 25^th, 2006 and was taken with the launch Xbox Live Arcade titles. I bought Marble Blast Ultra and started making new friends on the new platform. On January 27^th, 2006 I met a swirling pink marble that was trash talking with the best of the boys and a rivalry formed. I was rather good at the game and between the two of us we held spots in the top 10 players of that game for many months. It was a true friendship you can only gain by playing games, yelling at each other’s failures, and falling in sync knowing how the other person will react in various virtual situations.

I’m so blessed to have grown up in a world that is so interconnected. It is sad to think with all our facilities we still can’t communicate to understand each other but that is another post once again. So after a few years of college, graduating and starting in the games industry as a software engineer specializing in audio, UI, and UX, I continued to have a best friend I had never actually met. Most likely because I am stubborn and like to take things slow; we grew our friendship to allowing me to help her out of an unloving and emotionally abusive marriage. Helping her realize there was more to life than what she was experiencing helped me understand what an awesome woman I found bumping marbles one afternoon. After a couple trips here and there to truly see we weren’t serial killers, we decided we should give a relationship a go and found that building a relationship as best friends first, results in a marriage I think is stronger than most others. We never fight as we see other couples fight, I mean we definitely argue but she just hits me to make me realize I am wrong and then we are happy again. The biggest issue in our life is that she likes Miracle Whip over Mayo which just makes her wrong. Also she doesn’t like that I don’t like sharp cheeses, which usually come in yellow varieties so I avoid them. What I’m trying to say is Xbox Live brought together two complete strangers who are now quite happy despite life’s hardships, and can’t imagine our lives without the other person.

I’d like to say thank you Microsoft and thank you Xbox Live for inspiring me in my career and helping me find the best thing to happen to me, my lovely wife Nikki.

Mark G.