In high school I had basically five friends. We were more of a group, at various times. Everybody knew each other to varying degrees, although I'm sure that some people only knew of other people because they knew me. Of course, there were lots of other students I knew and grew up with over the course of the last 8 years of primary school. But this was the core of people that I actually knew out of school.

I don't remember second and third grades. All I remember is that it was more towards the middle of Sacramento. Fulton and Howe or thereabouts. We lived a couple of blocks away so it was a short walk. Big field, not too many students. I don't remember any of the other kids or teachers. But that was a short time of my life.

We moved to an apartment on Kiefer Boulevard, the unincorporated community of Rosemont, west of Rancho Cordova. My parents opened up a Chinese restaurant, and in a year or two we moved a couple of miles to the home where my parents and younger brother still live in. But I digress.

Fourth grade I started attending Golden Empire Elementary School. New school, new people. Ms Snooks was my 4th grade teacher, young and new at the job. Mr Nosler for 5th grade, a bearded veteran. Don't remember my 6th grade teacher's name, but he was more pedan- tic than the previous two.

I was pretty good in math, good enough that at 4th grade I and a few other kids went to Mr Nosler's class to learn math. One of the other people making the trek with me each day was Dennis Balagtas. I'm not too sure how we became friends, but we did. Actually, I tended to hang out with Rigo Gomez and a couple of other guys. Rigo sort of left for a couple of years and came back when we were in middle school. Dennis and I and yet a couple of other people played D&D on and off.

In middle school is where I met everyone else. Jack Ren who for some reason was the guy who tagged along. Brandon Sahlin, who my best friend during middle school. Michael Leonard, who was my best friend in high school after Brandon moved to Auburn. We had very few classes together. I had the most classes with Brandon, who was also in the GATE program. We played D&D, Star Fleet Battles, tracer-disc guns, computer games. My eighth grade English teacher ran the RPG club, which she promoted as a way to improve our creativity. So there were a good 15-20 people each week playing all sorts of games. Middle Earth Role Playing, RuneQuest, Star Frontiers, etc.

The GATE program (Gifted and Talented Education) was only a local program, I think. I think it was only implemented in our middle school. Two classes of kids, so about 60 of us. GATE only covered English and Social Studies (or whatever that was called back then). It was more oriented at teaching the bright kids with how to handle being bright, as far as I can tell.

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