About PJ
First and foremost, I love games. Especially the kind you think up and make by yourself. I love creating games where you race. Or ones where you build. Or ones where you think. Or sometimes even ones where you do all three!
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Back when I was growing up with my three brothers in Canada, I was constantly making games that the other neighborhood kids (and even some of their parents) would run over to try!
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And when I’m not trying to conjure up riddles or games, I am hiking through the forest or swimming in the ocean. (In summer, of course! I hit the pool in winter…)
From a very young age, I liked to do things my own way. As you can see, some of my decisions weren’t thought through very carefully… But nonetheless, they often ended up being fun! And who doesn’t love fun?
Thanks to my dad, I became an author. That is something I can say with 100% certainty. Why? Because every night at bedtime, he would lay down beside me and tell me a story. Back then, I had no clue where he had learned all those fantastic tales… Actually, he hadn’t gotten them from anywhere. He was making them up ON THE SPOT! Oh, and regarding this toboggan shot, “only” four of the five kids are his. The little girl is my cousin (^_^)
Of my three brothers, it was my second-eldest brother—nicknamed Tony Baloney back then—who got me into reading. I’d sneak up behind him and read over his shoulder. And when there were words I didn’t understand, he happily taught me what they meant. What an awesome brother! (Well, except for that time when he and his buddies locked me in my school locker on day one of junior high.)
I was so fascinated with science that in Grade 9, two friends and I signed up for the local “Science and Technology Olympics.” And (drum roll, please!) we somehow pulled out a first-place finish! Yay! Oops, that kind of sounds like bragging, doesn’t it… I wanted to tell you about my love for science (and math!) as it was my “inner scientist” who thought up some of the puzzles in the books.
Even when I had become a “mature” high-school student, that didn’t stop my brothers, friends, and I from taking on silly challenges. Here, our goal was to build a snowman whose head was higher up than a 10-foot basketball rim. I’m second from the right in this shot, and yes, we only took our shirts off to pose for the photo. (We were silly, not crazy!)