Those of you who have been to a GMT Weekend at the Warehouse know that the Billingsley kids have been involved with GMT for most of their lives. Samantha, our oldest, was born six months after I created the first version of Silver Bayonet in 1990. Rachel came along two years later, and Luke in 1996. All of them worked at GMT during summers and sometimes on weekends from very early ages, and all have done virtually every job in the warehouse and many of the jobs in the front office. Many of you have received packing slips signed by one of the Billingsley kids dating back to the late 1990s. They all grew up with GMT as the “family business” and are about as “Inside GMT” as you can get. Even now, they stay plugged into what’s going on with GMT (they watched the TS Kickstarter campaign with great interest this summer) and continue to offer good suggestions and feedback on how we’re running the business. Most of all, though, they all PLAY our games!
They’ve played a bunch of our games over the years, starting with a road trip with the girls about 15 years ago to meet Reiner Knizia in a San Francisco hotel and play games all day when Andy and I were first looking at some of his games. And they are fiercely competitive (must be from their mom’s side of the family! 🙂 ) Samantha owns family bragging rights as the only sibling to have, partnered with dad, won Mike Lam’s ACES Down in Flames tournament. The other two have made valiant attempts, but so far 2nd place is the best finish for Rachel and Luke. Besides Down in Flames, the girls mostly like our more Euro titles – we STILL take Ivanhoe with us on every family vacation. Rachel plays a mean game of Labyrinth, though, and reminded me just last week that she beat me the last time we played. Luke, though, likes both Euros and (thank you, Lord!) WARGAMES! He and I have played a lot of games of Combat Commander over the years, and he’s had a friendly grudge match going with John Leggat over various Combat Commander battlefields for years now (John, you have been a tremendous positive influence on Luke over the years. Thank you!). He also likes Labyrinth and the COIN series games, and this year discovered he liked to play Chess, so we’ve had some fun over the chessboard, as well.
My “little playtester” got big!
This summer, in between a lot of travelling, Luke has been helping me get Mr. President ready to hand off to the test teams. I always knew he was a good gamer, but this summer he has really impressed me with his attention to detail. He has an editor’s eye and reminds me of Volko in terms of organization and detail skills (that’s about the highest praise I can give), so he has been very valuable to me with his work on Mr President this summer.
Today is Luke’s 18th Birthday, so I wanted to dedicate some space in the blog to celebrating his day and to thanking him for just being such an awesome son! Don’t worry, I’m not going to babble on in public with a bunch of superlatives, but, especially since so many of you know Luke from the Consimworld Expo and GMT Weekends at the Warehouse over the years, I wanted to say “Happy Birthday” in public. I also wanted to give those of you who’d like to send Luke well-wishes or life wisdom as he heads off to college an opportunity to leave him a comment. He’s at camp this week and will fly out to Nashville to start college on Saturday, but Rachel is with him and she’s blog-savvy (she helped me create it) and will make sure Luke sees all your comments.
Every year, we go to Chevy’s for Luke’s birthday. He has a TON of those sombreros! This one is from our lunch there yesterday.
To all of you who know Luke and have shared your encouragement and friendship over the years, from an appreciative dad, please accept my thanks! Please join me in wishing him “Happy Birthday” and “Vaya con Dios” as he heads off to college.
Here are some pictures of Luke, over the years. I won’t embarrass him with baby pictures, but age 5 was about the time he started playing games at GMT Weekends, so I’ll include some from then.
Hard to believe, looking at him now, that he was ever this little! Hanging out in a park near the San Diego Zoo when Luke was 5.
Luke with Mary in Yosemite, Age 5.
He’s always loved baseball. Thankfully, he’s a Giants fan!
Luke at GMT Weekend when he was about 11, playing Spies with Dad, Mom, Rachel, John Leggat, and Mark Kaczmierak
A couple years ago, fellow gamers and dear friends Chris and Kevin Lefevre invited us down to Phoenix for a couple Giants Spring Training games (as well as Luke’s first-ever hockey game!).
We’ve watched hundreds of Giants games together, either on the couch with mom…
…or at AT&T park, an awesome place to watch a ballgame!
One of Luke’s last games as a 17-year-old, Thunder Alley with the family at the girls’ apartment.
Author: Gene Billingsley
All the best as you head off to college, Luke!
Congratulations! Happy birthday, Luke. Where you going to college in Nashville? Belmont?
Luke,
Happy 18th! and have a great time at college. Hopefully one day we’ll get to sit across from each other again in a DIF dogfight.
Luke,
We’ll all miss you being around us here in the office & warehouse. I wish you nothing but the best in your future. You’ve been a great kid & there’s no doubt that you’re on your way on becoming a Great Man. It’s hard to write all the things that I want to say to you but just know that it’s been pretty cool having you around all these years. Take care & I’ll look forward to personally packing your college snacks care packages that your Dad sends 🙂
Thank you, Dad, and thanks to all of you, gamers, and to the office ladies. The office ladies, especially Letitia, Elizabeth, and Cha, played a part in raising me as well, seeing as I worked at GMT regularly in the summers.
You, gamers, are definitely an interesting and unique group of people. From you I have learned new avenues of strategic thinking, various tactics to lull other players into a false sense of security shortly before twisting the knife deeper into their backs, and ways to playfully insult and degrade opponents, but I have also seen in many of you kindheartedness, often filled with humility and a paternal/maternal spirit as, like my parents have faithfully raised me in ways of The Lord, you have carefully nurtured me into a life of gaming and strategic thinking in hopes that one day I may meet your forces with equal strength and “grow into” the challenge of your opposing wit. I would like to thank each and every one of you who ever gave me a spare moment or couple of hours to greet me, teach me a game, or play a game with me. Those memories I believe will stay with me for years to come.
Finally, I’d like to add that, although I deeply appreciate and am grateful for the compliments and praise you have given me at any time over these years, any characteristic or positive trait you have seen in me is only a reflection of the image of my mother and my two fathers: Mary, Gene, and God. My parents have always raised me in accordance with their faith in The Lord and have done an overwhelmingly excellent job in doing so, in my opinion. I could never ask for better parents. They have taught me so much in these 18 years of my life. More than that, we all have a Heavenly Father who will forever surpass any predisposed ideas we hold in our mental image of a father. He is holy, righteous, and so many other perfect things I don’t want to waste my time failing to describe. Think of any bad characteristic in a person or anything wrong someone has said or done to you, and like Dad has been saying lately, “God is not like that at all.”
As I conclude I’d like to add my two cents, considering my mind is full of all of your two cents, gamers, and encourage all of you, if you haven’t before, to give Jesus a chance. I’m not saying you have to be on time to church Sunday morning, evening, and Wednesday night, or that you even have to attend a formal church service at all. What I mean is, every once in a while, pick up a Bible, turn to Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, and read about Jesus. I think you’ll find that He, although He came to live on earth as a fellow human, is out of this world.
Gene, you should be very proud of your son! I’m even more pleased now to know that many of my gaming dollars go to you and GMT 🙂
I couldn’t be prouder, Dave. Thanks for your kind words.