1
I
was born in April 1961, on my mother's 26th birthday.
2
For benefit
of folks who care about such things: sun in Aries, moon in Scorpio, Gemini
ascendant.
3
I was born
with a club foot, and was in a series of casts for 14 months.
4
When I was
17 days old, I got meningitis and wasn't expected to live.
5
If I lived,
some thought I would be mentally retarded. I test at about 140, so wrong on that
count.
6
However, I
did have nerve damage that affected my coordination and made people assume I was
"not mechanically inclined." I test high for
mechanical and spatial aptitude.
7
I was
chronically sick my first few years, until I received shots of gamma globulin as
an experiment. The chronic sickness returned when I was sixteen, pretty much
ruining high school for me and affecting me ever since. It was triggered by
chronic, heavy exposure to cigarette smoke.
8
I have a
big scar on my left wrist, shaped vaguely like a whale, from putting my hand
through the glass in a storm door when I was about five. That was the most
significant accidental injury I was to have for many years.
9
Apparently
I like to fall off trucks and need to be wary of them.
In the 9th grade, I fell out of a truck at school. In vocational agriculture we had an antiquated 1953 pickup. To do stuff on the school grounds, we would sit on the sides on the back, facing into the truck bed. The teach went around a corner in the parking lot, clipped a curbing enough for a fair jolt, and I tumbled off. Next thing I know, I'm coming to on the blacktop with everyone gathered around me. Ended up with a few stitches in the back of my head, and a slightly sensitive lump there to this day.
Just before 8:00 AM on December 26, 1990, I fell off the back of a tractor-trailer I was unloading. I worked for a company that sold home renovation/hardware products by mail, in receiving, where I'd been for a month. This was my first time unloading a brass delivery myself. I'd hopped up into the trailer to ready things to grab with the fork lift. The driver was there too, doing whatever it was he was doing not to help. I stood at the edge and started to jump down, but instead fell forward like the Nestea plunge, onto frozen, rocky gravel. Probably it was a four foot drop. Put out my hands to catch myself, so I landed on my hands and then my chest hit. I blanked out very briefly, then got up, hurting like hell, and unloaded the truck before reporting to my boss what had happened.
My chest was killing me, but nothing was actually wrong. I had fractured my left arm below the elbow, and damaged both elbows. I learned a great deal from the experience. The company had a hideous safety record, meaning typically about three such accidents per week in a workforce of 125. If you had an accident, it tended to mean your days were numbered. They had a policy that nobody was to call an ambulance. The HR person was tasked with driving people to the ER as needed. I was the second accident that day! In the first hour of the day! So I had to sit and wait for the HR person to get back from the first run to the ER, so she could turn around and take me. In the meantime, they couldn't bear to see me not working, so I packed parts with a broken arm, in excruciating pain. Everyone assumed there was nothing really wrong.
So I got to the ER around noon, some four hours after the accident, where I learned what patience-taxing fun an ER can be. Got a couple X-rays, a check of the ribs, arm in a sling, and sent on my merry way to resume work the next day and start a series of visits to the company pocket doctor whose specialty this was. Got back to collect my car just about an hour after my shift ended. Went on highly theoretically "light" duty starting the next day and didn't get off it for almost five months.
I shouldn't bring up things in this list that I'll be unable to resist going on and on about. There's more, but I'll stop now, except to say the elbows have never been normal since.
10
My
favorite color is blue. Big surprise.
11
The
earliest identifiable memories I have are of a trip to Prince Edward Island when
I was 2 years old.
12
In keeping
with my favorite color, my eyes are blue.
13
I am the
middle of five siblings. I have an older brother and sister, and two younger
brothers, born starting in 1954 and ending in 1971. I also have two younger
stepsisters.
14
I grew up
in a house 1/3 mile into the woods from any other houses, which was rural even
for then in that part of the state.
15
The state
being Massachusetts, where I live now and always have except for six weeks in
Florida, which was supposed to be 4-8 months, until the friends I was staying
with decided to move back north.
16
I have
been to 20 24 states and D.C., if you count sitting in a plane on the ground for an
hour as having been in Tennessee.
17
I have
slept in 14 16 of those states. This is a weird factoid I keep track of for some
reason.
18
I've been
to 4 Canadian provinces, having not had quite enough time to justify taking the
ferry to Newfoundland and adding that last time I was in Nova Scotia. I also
regret having not gone to Ontario to visit my great uncle when he was still
alive.
19
The great
uncle mentioned in thing #18 influenced my sense of humor, despite that I only
saw him a few times in my life. He was a jovial practical joker who drove my
staid grandmother nuts. He also helped defend me from my mean older siblings
when snowballs flew.
20
My
grandfather helped build the house I grew up in, which was made largely from
local wood cut at the sawmill next door. (There were several buildings near us,
just no houses.)
21
My
father's parents lived on the second floor of the house, where there were four
rooms. The first floor was two rooms. Our bedrooms were in the cellar, which had
three unfinished rooms. My mother always resented my father not finishing them
as planned. My father always resented my mother's almost complete inability to
clean and organize.
22
My parents
separated when I was nine.
23
I prefer
standard shift to automatic, hands down, no contest. Except in stop and go
traffic jams.
24
I have
owned 14 different cars, if I am remembering all of them correctly.
25
I have
been driving for just about 25 years.
26
I last got
a speeding ticket almost 24 years ago. You have no idea how amazing that
is.
27
I have no
accidents on record. I did hit a pole once, at less than 20 MPH, while
delivering papers, at about 5:00 in the morning. That was enough to kill the
car, but it bravely limped the mile or so home despite the front being a V and
the radiator and fan being toast. That was a good 16 years ago.
28
I love
bicycling, but haven't done it in years. The doctor would probably be all
excited if I took it up.
29
It was a
year from the time I got my first bike to the time I learned to ride it, during
which interval my sister used it waaaay more than I appreciated. My father
bought me a full size Schwinn right off the bat; one that wasn't even capable of
having training wheels. I was about 8, as I recall. With my coordination and
balance problems, this was more a challenge than for your average
kid.
30
Once I
could ride, I got very good at it, rode everywhere, and felt like I had wings. I
loved riding no-handed, and also riding as fast as I could. Wore that bike right
out. This was one of the best things that ever happened to me as a kid,
including for my physical development.
31
I don't
"do" sports. I couldn't really when I was young, which instilled a lack of
interest. About the only thing that actually interested me in gym was tennis,
but I had to learn some finesse or I'd hit the ball and blast it way over the
fence and off into the woods.
32
Contrary
to the previous thing, I do like watching many of the Olympic sports, especially
skating and gymnastics. I hated doing gymnastics. I always resented not ever
learning to ice skate, which was partly because there was a presumption I
couldn't. Anyway, I went years when there was little reason for me to have a TV
except if Olympics were on, and let me tell you, they're not the same in black
and white.
33
I grew up
in walking distance of a lake, and later my father owned a house that was one
house away from the same lake, so we went swimming there a lot.
34
Despite being near a lake, and having relatives with a pool starting
when I was about 6 or 7, I actually "learned to swim" at a lake in Maine when I
was several years old. In all reality, I hardly think I'd have drowned before
that if I was tossed in over my head.
35
Once I get
in the water, I am reluctant to get out, in extreme cases even for food.
36
From some
of my earliest memories, I was fascinated with girls. I mean, about the only
things I remember earlier are the snippets from the trip to Canada when I was
two.
37
My first
crush was in the fourth grade, on a dark haired girl from another room, who was
new at the school and whose name I never knew. Either she moved away, or the
next year she had changed so much I didn't recognize her.
38
My
performance and happiness in school was always highly dependent on the
competence and manner of the teacher, right through college. Also, where
applicable, it mattered how I liked the subject and how voluntarily I was taking
it.
39
I'm one of
those really annoying people who can get a good grade much of the time with
minimal effort.
40
But I'm
lazy, so if it's tougher for me and I'm not interested, I'll crash and burn,
almost to the point of binary grades.
41
I didn't
actually graduate from high school, dropping out at the beginning of April the
year I was to graduate, after missing 78 days sick in my senior year to that
point. I'd have had to go in the summer and take phys ed to graduate. English
was the only other thing I needed, and I had somewhere near an A in that. I was
feeling just a wee bit tormented at the time.
42
I took the
GED test just as soon as I could after the rest of the class graduated. I was in
the 95th percentile overall, with the five parts ranging from 91st to 99th
percentile. At the time, the last thing I felt like dealing with was more
school, but the test administrator's note saying I should continue my education
was the first nudge toward college.
43
I meant to
mention that most of school, especially most of high school, was incredibly lame
and boring. I'm pleased that they seem to be challenging and covering more with
my nieces and nephews than when I was there. They are doing things as early as
middle school level that I don't remember covering until college, if
ever.
44
After my
experience with high school, I declined to participate in college commencement.
I just picked up my diploma from the office once it was available there. That
pissed off the relatives who wanted to see me graduate. I am still not sure I
would ever care if I went through a graduation ceremony.
45
I have
never been out of the country except to Canada.
46
Come on,
it's only Canada, and yet exiting the country even to go there always makes me
strangely nervous, routine as it may be (say, at least 4 times a year).
47
The first
concert I ever attended, beside a couple my class had at high school with
semi-big names, was the Beach Boys, at Providence Civic Center late 1978.
48
The most
recent concert I saw was The Guess Who, late last summer at South Shore Music
Circus. They were absolutely unbelievable! They did the big hits of BTO as well.
It all sounded just as it should, only better. I'd see them again in a second,
and can understand why the people next to me had seen them in New York, then
decided to drive up to Massachusetts to see them again a couple days
later.
49
In
between, I have also seen Moody Blues, Bee Gees, ELO, Foreigner, Pink Floyd,
Cheap Trick, Styx with Pat Benatar, and... maybe that's it; thought there were
more. Not a big concert goer, really.
50
I can't
whistle. People find this just too weird.
51
I don't
play any instruments. I can puzzle out things by ear on a single note by single
note basis on piano, which my brother tells me means I could learn to play, gets
all puppy dog excitable and tries to show me vast amounts in a couple confusing
moments, but I'm like "chords? Huh?"
52
I have
never been married since January 2, 2004.
53
I have
never had children.
54
I have 16
nieces and nephews, and 2 grandnieces.
55
I always
thought I wanted to marry and have children, but now I can't imagine it but got nowhere in that direction until I despaired and could no longer even imagine it. Now I am married and certain I will have kids after all.
56
I have
never ridden a horse.
57
I think
horses are amazing, beautiful creatures. My late uncle bred race horses, and
after he drowned, a horse that had been his lived at my grandfather's house for
a long while.
58
I just
adore dogs, especially golden retrievers and other larger breeds.
59
I like
cats, rabbits, and animals in general, though I do tend to prefer the more
intelligent, active, interactive critters. Conversely, they usually take to me
well.
60
I have
never gone hunting.
61
I have no
opposition to hunting, though when I was a kid, during hunting season we used to
resent having to stay out of the woods surrounding our house, or at least be
careful (noisy and bright). There was a hunting cabin just slightly into the
woods across the street.
62
I have
never owned a gun, except a BB gun.
63
I am a
rabidly pro second amendment fanatic, and make fun of the reading comprehension
of those who ignore it, or misinterpret it to be in any way restrictive.
64
I've only
ever fired (non-BB) guns a few times.
65
I always
loved playing with bows and arrows, and with slingshots.
66
When I was
12 I co-built, really was the primary force behind, a tree hut about 20 feet up
a tree at my newly met best friend's house. It was made out of smaller trees we
cut down for beams, and mainly found or discarded boards and plywood. It was big
enough to sleep two kids in sleeping bags with room to spare, and last I knew
was still up in the tree almost 30 years later, if unsafe to go in due to rotted
floorboards. The walls weren't straight and it wasn't fancy, but I still can't
believe we did it, at that age.
67
I love to
play cribbage, which I learned from my grandfather. A funny incident happened
when I was a watchman at a paper factory. Guys who worked there and normally
played during lunch break were missing a fourth, so they invited me to join
them. I had said it had been a long time since I'd played. They somehow heard
that as "I'm not very good." They were surprised. Heh.
68
I always
sucked at Clue.
69
I am worse
at Scrabble than you might expect.
70
I used to
play Risk, which I enjoyed, with my friend Tom, until I figured out how to win
every time.
71
I am not
big on computer games, with the last major game I played extensively being Doom
2.
72
My first
PC game was DOS shareware Tetris, which used J, K, L and M instead of arrows,
becase it was still common for there to be 84-key keyboards. My roommate put it
on my 286 that had been gameless for its first two years. I still enjoy it, and
that game single-handedly did wonders for my finger speed and
coordination.
73
I
sometimes think people have it too easy these days when they buy computers and
don't really have to learn anything. My first PC booted to C:\> and at the
top center said "Welcome to the Packard-Bell Computer World."
74
In seventh
grade I disliked wood shop class. Yet I admire people who can build things like
furniture.
75
In eight
grade I loved metal shop.
76
I also
liked welding, which we did in the vocational agriculture classes in high
school. My father and brother never took seriously the concept of my doing
things like welding. It was strange.
77
Back to
the topic of games, there may be a pattern to the fact that I am a Minesweeper
addict, a Moraff's Morejongg addict (but I have to play Mega-Morejongg because I
noticed after a while a finite set of tile patterns in the regular version), and
an online Marbles
addict.
78
I wasn't
brought up with any particular sense that I would someday have to establish a
career, earn adequate money, and support myself, and that perhaps I ought to be
thinking about and preparing toward such an eventuality significantly more than
was the case prior to turning 18 and being abruptly faced with reality. If
there's one thing I fault my parents for, this is it. Heck, I had some clue, but
didn't grasp the scale of it or have a truly serious sense of things.
79
Somewhere
along the line I was interested in astronomy.
80
Somewhere
along the line I was interested in meteorology.
81
Somewhere
along the line I was interested in geology. My sister and I, and one of my best
friends in elementary school, were all into the rock hound thing. I considered
geology as a major when I got to college. That and another earth science course
were what I took for the science requirement, which was also good for the GPA.
My geology professor used to make fun of sociology, saying all he learned in
sociology was it's bad to be poor, which he already knew. Heh.
82
Somewhere
along the way, like most kids, I wanted to be a DJ.
83
I've been
fascinated by electronics and gadgets as long as I can remember. In a more
twisted aspect of that, I used to take a Lionel train transformer, touch the
leads in different places in broken radios and walkie talkies, and see what
happened or fry components. Got some cool squealing noises that way. I used to
be jealous of my older brother, working on his guitar amplifier, going to radio
shack for tubes and other parts with our cousin. In 1974 I sketched something I
had in mind that now you'd recognize as a crude multimedia, communication center
workstation, or a wish for something amounting to one. I wish I still had
that!
84
I was
always fascinated with business, and with the so-called robber barons. When I
was a kid I would read their bios and completely relate to them. I guess I
missed the part where I was supposed to think they were eeeeevil.
85
Somewhere
along the line I was interested in farming, and more particularly horticulture
of the more ornamental variety.
86
In my
teens I had a lawn mowing and snow removal business. There really weren't jobs
like there are now, so there weren't many options otherwise.
87
I was
fascinated in my later teens with the idea of the mail order business before
mail order became outrageously huge, but I didn't have a product to sell that
way, or capital.
88
Circa 1977
- 1986 I was obsessed with the idea of starting or joining, or even simply
encouraging others at, a commercial space launch venture, with the ultimate
objective of terraforming Mars, or at least enabling that to begin.
89
I never
took the SAT test.
90
I took the
PSAT, and from those scores the college admissions guy extrapolated that I'd
have been in the 600's on each part of the SAT.
91
I started
college three years out of high school, attending the local state college
because it was cheap and I could afford to pay for it myself, I could easily get
admitted, I could commute there, and one of my best friends went there.
92
I was
motivated to go to college for a few reasons. I had advanced rapidly at the book
bindery where I worked, but any further advancement and money would require a
degree. I was jealous of my friends who were in college, and knew it was silly
for me not to go too. Finally, I was in a bout of depression that made me want
to escape my current situation, which felt too dead end.
93
After I
read 1984 in late 1981, I started having nightmares - virtually unheard
of for me - and was thrown into a state of depression, the same one mentioned in
item 92. It was reading Atlas Shrugged that made me feel better.
94
I'm not prone to
phobias or nightmares, but the one big thing that terrifies me and can give me
nightmares is the idea of being accused of something I didn't do, or something
that shouldn't be considered "wrong" and punishable. Guess I have oppression
phobia. Thus my reaction to 1984.
95
The Atlas
Shrugged character to whom I most closely relate is Hank Reardon.
96
When I started
college, I was undeclared. I considered geology, as mentioned, as well as
political science and computer science. When I tried to take a political science
class to satisfy general requirements, I fled rapidly because I couldn't bear to
have a commie professor pretending to be "balanced." In the short time I was in
the class, we'd had to write a commentary on one of Reagan's state of the union
speeches, which I did from an unabashedly libertarian perspective. Subsequently
when I went to have the professor sign the withdrawal form, he seemed nervous to
be around me, which thought was funny. But I digress.
I discovered there was a nascent Management Science program that started under the auspices of the Earth Sciences department. After one undeclared semester, that became my major. I considered minoring in economics when that became available, but decided I had enough to worry about.
97
Thus my degree
ended up being a B.S. in Management Science, Finance and Accounting
Concentration. I was torn between that and the marketing concentration, which
people find weird because they see it as two different brain types.
98
In the early to
mid eighties, for a few years, I was a card carrying member of the Massachusetts
and national Libertarian parties. Literally card carrying; when I joined, they
had membership cards, which were discontinued a couple years later. I attended
the state party convention for a couple years. Rebecca Shipman is the only
candidate for governor I've ever met personally, as a result. I meant to write a
whole post about this sometime, so I'll stop now rather than expanding this to
"could be its own post" length.
99
I'm not
particularly fond of having my picture taken, and usually react with revulsion
to seeing myself in a photo the way most people react to hearing their own voice
on tape.
100
I am a
perfectionist. Lest you think this sounds like a good thing, it's not. I will
completely avoid doing what I lack the time, ability or interest to do just
so.
101
Related to the
above, I am superlative at planning and organizing things, but not at the drudge
or repetition of keeping things organized and maintained in a particular
state.
102
I am a terrible
procrastinator. This is bad, even though I always wrote my best papers at the
last minute, and thrive in a pressure situation, which procrastination
artificially induces.
103
I have always
been shy, but when you get past the shyness and I am comfortable, I'll talk your
ear off. The shyness is worst with girls I am attracted to, which makes it vital
for anyone reciprocally interested to club me explicitly with unambiguous
evidence of the fact.
104
Sometimes in
mid-sentence I will completely forget what I was saying and the entire train of
thought that went along with it. I find this most disturbing. When I was talking
with my doctor at the last appointment, he got to witness it. I'm not sure what
he made of it.
105
I have always
had an excellent memory, which can be used to make people think I'm more
intelligent than I am. This makes the above incidents all the more
disturbing.
106
I am terrible at
remembering names. Once I remember you at all though, I will remember surprising
details about you that most people wouldn't in such a casual way. It amazes
people that I can do things like remember fifty different passwords.
107
I enjoy cooking,
but am lazy about bothering with it most of the time. At one time I was known
for the cookies I'd bring to work.
108
Some people
consider me a "movie buff," but I am rather uncultured as far as older movies,
and haven't been seeing near as many as I did in the late nineties.
109
I love words,
linguistics and writing; the flow, feel and subtle nuances of words strung
together to convey ideas, feelings and descriptions. Writing is construction
with building blocks of the mind.
110
I am not as good
about keeping in touch with people as I once was, and if you're not online, it's
truly grim.
111
I think I should
have stuck with 100 things, but hey, everyone does that, and hobbits are
cool.