Science and medical health says I don’t have much time left. I’m okay with that. I’m pretty happy with my life. I think I’ve lived a good one. I’ve compiled a partial list of some accomplishments I’m proud of. My childhood is a story of it’s own, lived more like Huckleberry Finn meets Nicholas Tesla, living in/exploring BC, Dad was a HAM, so I’ll start with high school. While this may sound like bragging, it’s just truth, that’s all I have right now.

When we had the national IQ test at our school, I was called into the office days after, and my school counsellor asked me this question: “What do you want to do with your life Wally?” I told him I really don’t know yet and asked him why. He replied that I had the highest score they had ever seen and that whatever I chose to do in life, I should be quite successful at it. Things did work out and if I did indeed have a high IQ back then, I’m sure it’s been hammered down due to decades of mental health meds and age. I feel I still have bright moments of thought now and again. Maybe it’s from coding/animating on TRS-80’s back in the 70’s. That stuff sticks with you.

Met Sonni at JJ’s Crystal Palace, a roller skating rink, when I was seventeen, her sixteen. I became a DJ there and wooed her with Talking Heads and Queen. Dated for four years and then got married. We’ve been through a lot together, great times, not so great times, but we are still together. She has been my rock, in the past and present. I love her so much. We’ve only been with each other, so that’s really special.
Shortly after starting our family, I went back to school at UFV and enrolled in their Design program. I was the first student to ever receive the Outstanding Achievement Award 2 years in a row. I loved going to school. Graduated with honors and made Dean’s List. Janina, Mircho, Paul and Mak were inspiring Teachers. (RIP to most of them)

While going to school, I started working locally, designing logos, ads and promotional material for Radio Stations, Community Events, Foundations, etc. Made the local papers quite a few times. Was on CompuServe (a commercial BBS) right before connecting to the Internet in the early nineties. Back when all web pages were grey with blue links. Learned HTML, illustrated and animated some of the first gifs back then.

The first retail box of Flash (then called Future Splash Animator) had my name and picture on the back of it as I was one of the first devs to have demos done by me included in the software. I continued to design for Flash after Macromedia (after that Adobe) bought it and rebranded it.

In early 1996 I entered Netscape’s “Netscape Navigator Gold International Web Design Competition” and won. Ten thousand dollar prize. It felt like a million bucks. I showcased Splash/Flash on one of my sections, lots of new tech I found interesting I created examples for.

Being a gamer all of my life, I designed a lot for the gaming community back then. PennyArcade, BlueNews, Voodoo Extreme, Shacknews, Stomped, Redwood’s, etc. The gaming community was new and pretty friendly/awesome. Made some great friends for life.

Designed Activision.com twice, and many, many of their titles. It was pure joy designing for gaming. Vahn was such a good person to work with, we understood each other perfectly and every project turned out ace.

Designed all of the GameSpy, GameSpy Arcade, GameSpy Industries logos and PlanetQuake/PlanetUnreal/etc sites. So many good people there, felt like family.

Designed for my gaming heroes, id Software’s site featuring Quake2, designed Quake3arena.com and also the Quake 2 Manual on the software CD.

Designed for Epic Games, The 3-bladed Unreal Tournament logo, epicgames.com and Unreal.com. Made more friends and my dreams realized. Mark is such a nice person.

GodGames I designed the logo and web site for as well. Really good (One More Time by Blink182 song plays here -longtime fan of Blink182) friends made there. Miss Doug, love Mike & Scott.

Tony Hawk shook my hand at E3 and said “Awesome work, Walter.” on my design of the Flash-animated sites and online advertisements for The original Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2. Being a boarder most of my youth, This felt pretty awesome.

My man-crush, Keanu Reeves most likely saw my work on The Matrix Online site and also The Good Shepherd Entertainment logo I designed that published the game “John Wick Hex.” 😊

I designed the logo for 2 gaming legends, Tom Hall and John Romero’s company, MonkeyStone.
There’s lot’s more to say, so much I can’t recall/remember, but when/if I can make it, wait for my book, it will be on an old typewriter when I do.

Much love, my friends, life is so special, enjoy every moment.