[Rain Man]

Age 7 - My dad's friend Larry asks to come to our house to see a football game involving his favorite team, the Kansas City Chiefs. I'd seen a little football before, but with company over, I watched the game seriously and thought, "Wow. The Chiefs."

Age 11 - My friend Mark shows me a new type of game, "Kriegspiel". It introduces me to wargames, which become a primary hobby and source of friends all through high school.

Age 18 - The University of Kansas loses the paperwork to my scholarship, leading me to abandon my dream of being a KU student and choosing UMR, which then affects ... everything.

Age 25 - My boss is told to transfer a person to a new project. He tells us it's between me and Gordon. Gordon is a buddy of his, and I'm not. I get sent. My future wife eventually gets assigned to the next cubicle, and the project eventually gets canceled, resulting in my layoff.

Age 27 - I'm about to go to law school, and wander to the building next door for the public affairs program, which I've never heard of. They have a notice up that the Foreign Service Exam is coming up, and I decide I want to work in an embassy. I stop the law school process and go to the public affairs school.

Age 29 - An alumni of my program puts a flyer up at my school for a consulting job in Denver. I see it and think, "Hey, that sounds cool."

Age 32 - We're househunting, and as we're looking at a house, my Realtor says, "Y'know, I'm thinking about selling my house, and it's only two blocks from here." We look at it and think, "Hey, this house is cool". 14 years later, we're still here.