The author of the new Wheel of Time Book rules. He is a fairly new author, but has some awesome books. They are some of the best epic fantasy books I've ever read. I highly suggest you read Elantris (http://www.brandonsanderson.com/book/Elantris) or Mistborn (http://www.brandonsanderson.com/book/Mistborn).

Sweet. I started on a TI-82 sometime around then too. My first program was a Russian roulette program where the user had to pick 1-6 and if they picked the wrong number they died. Since I didn't know how to generate a random number, I hard coded the "kill" number in. After I figured out how to generate a random number I didn't look back. I agree, give coders a language/environment they can easily jump into and they will get it. :D