My name is Todd Furler.

I currently work as a technical writer for a large utility. Some of the other pages on this site make it clear that my favorite hobbies are board games and role-playing games. I particularly enjoy teaching games.

I've been pleasantly surprised to learn that my pastime of teaching games has helped me considerably in my occupation. Both involve figuring out how something works (either a game or a piece of technology) and then taking a stab at how to best explain the thing.

I bought a new house in 2006. For reasons that are tedious in the retelling, there wasn't a single aspect of the purchase of the new house that went smoothly. At times it seemed as if no human being had ever bought a house before and I was blazing a trail through uncharted territory. 

Ultimately, due more to the efforts of the seller than to me, the buyer, the house became mine. Here it is:

Now, this was not my first purchase of a home. I'd owned my previous home since 1989.

As soon as I bought the new home, I had to sell my old home. Fortunately, I was able to sell my earlier residence rather quickly. There was only a three-month period where I was paying two mortgages.

During the time when I owned both homes, my friends and I needed a concise way to distinguish between the two houses. My old home was the smaller of the two, so we started referring to it as the Summer Cottage. The new home was therefore christened Winter Haven. Even after the old house was sold, we continued to refer to my current abode as Winter Haven. The name has stuck.

I really enjoy living in Winter Haven. Like any new homeowner, I'm still discovering things about the place. And because it's an old home (built in 1850, or so say the tax records), some of the things I've discovered are very... interesting. But it's a great house in a great location, and it's got plenty of room for games.

And that, truth be told, was the whole point of the purchase.