Recently, I played pinball and went bowling in the same week. The two games will always be linked together for me because that’s where I first really experienced interaction design: the bowling alley. I enjoy saying that I grew up in a bowling alley. There’s tiny me camping under stinky shoes, scrounging stale nachos for dinner, and sniping smokes from the ‘dults. But in truth, from roughly the ages 7 to 13, my mom, aunt and uncle were all in bowling leagues, so I went once or twice a week to the Valley View Bowl down in Garden Grove, in the land 25 years later would be branded The OC. During the recent bowl, I indulged a flashback of my very first job: keeping score on league nights. I’d sit in the center seat while the ten adults would all give math boy a dollar to keep score for a series, three games. The math came naturally, I just had to dodge the beer and cigarettes. Never thought about until just now, but I earned my first dollars doing math. That’s a comforting notion.…