Seven Things

Jeff Bohnhoff tagged me for the "7 Obscure/Surprising Facts" meme. I don't usually do memes, but JeffB rarely posts and I found his "7 Facts" so interesting that I felt compelled to answer. Instead of tagging people, I'll throw it open to anyone who wants to answer in their own blog or my comment section; if you post in your own blog, please do include a link so I can read it.

Seven Obscure or Possibly Surprising Facts About Me

I've been blogging since early 1997, so if I haven't blogged about something, then it was probably too personal to blog about and I'm not about to start now. However, I'll bet there are very, very few people who have read every single one of my Blatherings, so I thought it would be ok to reference some old ones here.

1. I used to have a Sea Monkey (tm) named Sigmund (May 30/97). I also had a hermit crab named Martha. Surprisingly, I found the Sea Monkey (tm) way more interesting. It took two weeks for me to notice that Martha was dead.

2. I have a Geeky School Photo gallery online. I'd forgotten completely about this page until someone just recently e-mailed me about it; he had found it through Google. I'll probably be deleting this page in the next few weeks, so you should check it soon if you're interested. You may even recognize a name or two.

3. One of my first computers was a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model III; it was a family computer. We briefly had a Model I until our Model III was ready. SOOO exciting! My brother and I used to spend hours typing in BASIC code from a computer games magazine; we'd take turns: one person would read, the other would type. After we typed in the whole program, we'd try running it. If it didn't run, it meant that one of us had mistyped at least one character. Debugging was a MAJOR pain -- we'd have to read through the entire thing again. We saved our programs on cassette tape. Yeah, I know, I'm OLD!

4. I've had the "magazine/newsletter editor" bug in me for as long as I can remember. I put together Family Weekly (cover sample at top of this page) for many years; I think I started when I was around 12 or so - my editorial staff consisted of Ruth (10 at the time) and Jim (8). My very first regular comic strip was called Boppy, about a weird little baby. I drew it for Family Weekly.

5. I wrote my first "novel" when I was nine years old. I can't remember if it was for a school assignment, or if I did it just for fun and submitted it to my teacher. I remember being SO proud of the fact that it had chapters. Here's the first page:



I'm not sure why my teacher praised my use of "instantly." Though I suppose she said "good word" and NOT "good use," didn't she? :-) I used to be a bit of a word freak. When I found a word I thought was really cool, I wanted to use it in my writing right away.

6. I used to play the piano for a youth group in a Baptist Church that learned contemporary Christian musicals and would then tour around to different churches to perform them.

7. I used to collect souvenir spoons as a kid. I still have the collection and really should throw them out (they're VERY tacky-looking and all rusted) but I can't bring myself to do it because they're associated with such wonderful family memories. I also used to collect autographs. Here are some of them:

From top to bottom: Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Bill Gaines (editor of MAD magazine), Robert Heinlein.

8. (bonus, heh) I graduated from the University of Toronto with two majors: one in Computer Science, the other in Psychology - and a minor in Climatology. Yes, I said Climatology. I got interested in the subject after working one summer at Environment Canada, creating weather summary reports for clients using JCL.

I honestly can't remember how many of the above I've mentioned in Blatherings before. Anyway, JeffB also tagged one of my music partners, Jodi, and she's (*gasp) actually been posting in her blog recently as a result, much to the shock of her friends.

Had a great Urban Tapestry practice with Allison and Jodi last night. I'm looking forward to attending a local housefilk tomorrow.

Video O' The Day

Thanks to my pal Ray Vankleef for pointing me to the following video, which was a great way to start the morning. In Instant Messenger, Comedian Nick Thune talks about childhood romance, but from a Internet geek perspective.