My major was accounting so I knew I would be in the finance field somewhere as I knew I'd get my MBA in Finance a few years out of college. I was in investment banking for a good 7 years which I really enjoyed doing mezz and equity deals for land developers and homebuilders, but with the crash in 2008 our company ended up shutting down so one of the few options I had in Phoenix, AZ was banking doing special assets, which the only way to put that is miserable. Basically working on broken commercial real estate deals and trying to fix them or if not foreclosing on the office building / shopping mall and then suing the borrower for the deficiency. However, I have now transition banks and roles back into doing commercial deals again in our specialty finance group which is pretty entrepreneurial (or as much as can be) at a bank. Happy to be where I am at now and going through the shit for the last 6 years definitely taught me a ton more than I ever learned previously.
Biggest lesson having kids taught me is I had a lot of free time when I had no kids lol. Then when we had 2 kids I realized how much time I had when I had 1 kid . But seriously, not that anyone ever is really prepared or taught how to be a parent, but the one thing I am sure of is your kids don't care about your job, or how much money you have, but just that they just want to be loved. And if that's the only thing you do is just give them as much love as you can they will turn out OK (or at least less screwed up than their parents).
A secondary lesson that I have learned is how different kids can inherantly be. Our oldest (son) is this old soul. Sensitive, extremely empathetic towards other kids and insanely smart. After having him in soccer and tee ball he may not end up being a star athlete if it's any indication at this age. He always does what he is told. Our daughter on the other hand while extremely sweet has a lot of...let's call it spunk. At one and a half when I asked her to do something she spun around, pointed her finger at me and said "don't do that" and walked away. I think I just stared dumbfounded. I thought I was the most brilliant dad ever with how our son was and then to see that realized while certainly I have an impact, there are some certain inherant traits kids have so you just need to understand accordingly and adjust. With that said, she can pretty much run as fast as my son, pretty much throws the ball better than he does, and is his equal at soccer at 2 while he is 4. Now that she can defend herself if my son takes one of her toys she pretty much will grab another and smack him on the head to get it back. Long story short, I am pretty much screwed when she becomes a teenager. Sorry, way longer answer than you were hoping for.
Biggest time investment in a game was definitely WoW. Came on in 2007 right at the launch of the first expansion and pretty much played it a ton through the early part of this year. What I think that and hopefully W* fills a niche of competition that I don't get playing competitive sports anymore as weird as that may sound. I really enjoy learning about my class, how to get better, learning strategies of BGs (and in the case of W* warplots) and optimal gameplay in them. I typically lean towards DPS or heals, mainly played a Rogue, Warlock, and Priest in WoW (a bit of Shadow and Disc).
The last book I finished was Malcolm Gladwell's "What the Dog Saw". The guy digs into a lot of trends and analyzes them and makes you think a lot differently than what your instinctual reaction may be. I would recommend all of his books. Also love Kurt Vonnegut for fiction. Guy is pretty brilliant. Currently reading the 2nd Hunger Games book since we never see real movies anymore, although if you want to know anything about Dora the Explorer, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Cars, Planes, or Thomas the Train I am your guy.
Most disgusting ice cream flavor all time, which there are no contenders is Durian. If you don't know what durian is, it is this fruit from Asia that literally smells like garbage / natural gas (like when there is a leak or your gas oven is on but didn't light). I lived in Asia for 8 years (4 in Thailand and 4 in Indonesia) as a kid and in Thailand I had this ice cream thinking it was Vanilla. Took one bite, almost threw up, and threw it in the trash.
I preordered so am looking forward to leveling up with all of you this weekend.