The artwork speaks for itself. It is both poignant and powerful, especially if you have someone close to you on the spectrum.

I love great artists so I dug a little deeper and found a treasure trove.

The son of baseball great Dale Murphy, Tyson worked for many years at Blizzard Inc. (video game company) as a graphic artist and also has a son on the autism spectrum.

I can relate to him on so many levels.

First of all, I am a gamer. I’ve always been a gamer, will always be a gamer. As a matter of fact, my wife and I used to play video games together for dates. She used to work nights, and since I worked from home, I switched my schedule around to work nights as well so we could see each other on our days off. And since we were up together during the late night hours and nothing was open, we spent our time gaming together (I FOUND A KEEPER, GUYS!). Our game of choice was made by Blizzard Inc called World of Warcraft.

Our final time playing together was the day our oldest kid was born back in 2008. Then, parenting took over.

What do I play right now?

Well, nothing. I play nothing. (except an occasional Disney Infinity quest to help my son out). Parenting and having a family gets in the way of gaming but I’ve never been averse to it with my kids.

For those who don’t know, I played baseball for a long time and have followed baseball for most of my life. My dad pitched batting practice for the Seattle Mariners when I was 7 years old so I was introduced to baseball at the highest level as far back as I can remember. I used to get so tired of going to Mariners games I would only go if they were giving out something for the kids.

I played baseball in high school and college and had aspirations of becoming a professional baseball player. Of course, very few actually make it to that level. And while I was better than some, a shoulder injury in college paired with the fact I did not have the talent or the drive to make it at the pros made me face the reality of a much less glamourous (in my opinion back then) life.

I still enjoy watching the game and I remember collecting Dale Murphy baseball cards as a kid.

Many of you don’t know, but I was an art major in college. It is fairly rare to find a combination of athlete/artist because both endeavors tend to be very time consuming.

I was inspired at a young age by the immortal Bob Ross to learn to draw and eventually paint. So when I went off to college, I did mostly 2 things… Art and Baseball. I guess I also met my wife there, so that is an added bonus (and acquired an exorbitant amount of student debt).

I now do graphic design work when I’m not blogging about being an autism parent.