Vital Stats:
Age: 35
Location: Durham, North Carolina (USA)
Marital Status: Happily married (sorry Peach) to Nancy Anderson
Kids: One daughter named Jarah Dayne Anderson. We hope to have at least one more
Work: In Chapel Hill, NC at Terra Dotta (lead web programmer).

The idea for NintendoAge started in May 2002 and was inspired by several other sites, such as NESWorld, AtariAge some NES database site that is now defunct AFAIK (I forget the name, but I think Klarth Ailerion ran it). I liked the close-knit community at NESWorld, the format of AtariAge and the data organization from the NES database site. But I wanted all 3 of them in one place, so I decided to build it myself. I posted my idea on NESWorld and was flooded with people wanting to help out, sending in scans, etc. I worked on it, scrapped it, worked on it more, scrapped it, and did this several times with nothing ever really panning out. Anyone that's every done a game database will tell you how much tedious work it is.

Fast forward 4 years to August, 2006. Jason Smith (NationalGameDepot) and I were talking over the phone and I told him about the site, the state of things, etc. He basically called me almost daily after that point, heckling me to release it in it's unfinished state. And the site was born. In fact, It's still not finished! So for the record, if it weren't for Jason (NGD), NintendoAge.com would probably still be on a drive somewhere collecting microdust.

Since opening, It's been an uphill battle, trying to balance work with family life with site duties and maintenance, but I still love keeping it alive and love building on it as time permits. As a result, things haven't come along as quickly as I would have originally liked, but that's how life works sometimes.

Here's my excuse:

(Jarah Dayne Anderson getting ready to see the Easter Bunny with Grandma at some mall in Orlando, FL)

Now on to some random factoids about me, inspired by the occasional email I get asking me if I'm "that one guy" (how many Dain Andersons are out there?!). I think it's because I'm on the internet a lot as a hobby and profession and I've been part of so many random things throughout my life that don't seem to logically connect.

That said, you might know me from (in no particular order)...

• My stint as a webmaster of CFComet, a site dedicated to COM development in ColdFusion. The site has since died, but Michael Dinowitz at HouseOfFusion still has it up I think. My early articles on Regular Expressions (RegEx) in ColdFusion led me to...
• My stint as a tech writer and editor for technical books. I've served as a major and minor contributing author on more than 10 books on the subject of web and SQL programming and served as a tech editor on a few others. A huge shout out to Ben Forta for giving me my first writing gig, and one that helped open the door to many great jobs. And to Michael Dinowitz for keeping the community alive all these years. I'm still around, just lurking in the shadows these days.
• My stint in professionally-sanctioned Air-Hockey competitions in Colorado, Texas and California (yes, they really do have professional Air-Hockey!) If you think video gamers take collecting seriously, you should check out one of these events. A huge shout-out to Sean Peistrup, Mike Mosiniak and Keith Fletcher, some of the old Colorado crew that taught me all I needed to know in life by playing Air-Hockey.
• My stint as a karate instructor and contender in karate tournaments in Colorado. This shout out goes to Sensei Joe Cooper who awarded me my first black belt by simply handing it to me at a tournament saying, "You're ready." Talk about confidence. I ended up taking third, and it was a NASKA AAA rated event with competitors from around the world. I lost to a Canadian! :)
• My stint as a pool magazine columnist and avid pool player. Several years back I did a technology column for InsidePool magazine, on and off for about a year (I think I did 6-7 articles for them). When not writing, I could be found in various pool halls across North Carolina. Now that I'm a husband and father, I'm afraid my late-night pool-playing days are for the most part over. Every now and then I'll pick up my '91 custom Paul Mottey (it's a pool cue, but kinda like a Ferrari) and beat up the locals (heh, or not). A shout out goes to JR Calvert for giving me that opportunity. I know we fell out, but you're still OK in my book.
• My stint as an online college instructor with Digital EDU (now defunct I believe). I taught college-accredited JavaScript, XML, CSS and HTML to people of all walks of life trying to get into web design. I still get questions to this day from some of my students, and it's been years since I did this.
• My stint as a board member of the HTML Writers Guild (HWG) back in its glory days (1997 and 1998) when they had over 100,000 members. Basically, back when the HWG actually mattered and before the big merge (hmmm... I wonder if Kynn and Ann killed it? That's my guess). My primary responsibility other than voting on pointless issues was to maintain The Bookmark, which was their online computer book store. It was basically a front-end to the Barnes & Noble affiliate system. Oh, and a huge shout out to Gerald Oskoboiny (of W3C fame) -- we partied hard in N'awlins (New Orleans)!
• My relation to Sloan Anderson, my rock star brother and lead singer of Single File:
  
  http://www.singlefilerock.com/