Been meaning to do this for quite some time.

50 Things About Me


1. I won 3rd place in a school-wide arts contest in elementary school, for composing a song called "Little Green Man." It was the only song I've ever written lyrics for. I did a MIDI instrumental version a few years ago, and I may turn that inside out and make it the Serqet song.

2. I have a big scar on my left knee from when I busted it open on the edge of my neighbors' pool in a freak accident. The freak part was I was in the pool at the time. Memorable quote from that event: "Do you want me to dive down and get the rest of his knee?"

3. While learning to drive, I thought I would turn sharper if I hit the gas. I ran into a tree. Thankfully we were off-roading and it was a small, relatively insubstantial tree.

4. I once owned a motorcycle. Off-road trail riding only though.

5. My familiy once had a double-jointed parakeet who could clutch the side of his cage with both feet and spin around 360 degrees without letting go.

6. I once recorded a piece of music(?) using a half-full (or half-empty) bottle of Gatorade, a contact mic, a radio that could pick up the local hospital paging system, and a lot of reverb. I was lucky enough to catch a nurse saying "the echo is ready." I wish I still had that tape.

7. As a kid, I had a chest of drawers that my dad and I turned into a robot-looking thing. It had an old vacuum tube tester in a wooden case for a head, bicycle reflectors for eyes, air hoses for arms, and practically no neck. Thus its name, Nonik.

8. I used to throw knives and shuriken at a wooden target my dad made for me from the remains of an old picnic table.

9. My love for electronic music began with.... wait for it.... Captain & Tenille. (Alan Parsons, Pink Floyd, Synergy, Walter/Wendy Carlos, and Isao Tomita helped to cement that in all their 8-track glory.)

10. The first cassette tape I bought was Tomita's Greatest Hits.

11. My first two CDs were Front 242's Front by Front and Fine Young Cannibals' The Raw & The Cooked (which my mom still likes).

12. We owned the home Pong console before Atari came out with its console. And a big, mustard yellow plastic black-and-white TV.

13. I hooked my first computer, a Commodore 64, up to that same old TV.

14. I had fish named after Star Blazers (Space Cruiser Yamato) characters.

15. In my senior year in high school, if I recall correctly, my classes were TV Production, Study Hall (which I spent volunteering in the library), English, Jazz Ensemble, Contemporary Literature, Advanced Orchestra, Driver's Ed.

16. I was in the SCA for a few years, in the Shire of Brineside Moor. It was a really geeky shire, full of heralds, several kindgom officers, multiple Laurels and Pelicans... and one fighter. I hung out with the Barony of Darkwater 3 hours away, instead.

17. I was in the Florida West Coast Youth Symphony program for a while. I skipped many of the music theory classes to go walking on the beach with some of the other kids. Now of course I'm composing stuff and could have used it...

18. I built my first PC, a 12MHz Turbo XT, from mail-ordered components... and installed all the RAM chips in backwards and fried one.

19. My cellphone has over 25 times as much memory as that computer did.

20. I have never been skiing.

21. I have been to Disney World many times. Space Mountain is the greatest ride ever.

22. I dyed my hair red a week before the 2001 Retreat where I chose to have it shaved off.

23. I distinctly remember my dad teaching me how to "hint" to my mom that we should all go out to see Star Wars in the theater. I was 5.

24. I was a vegetarian for 7 years. In college, I even had a "Meat Stinks" bumper sticker on my car for a few months. What can I say, it was college!

25. First heard Skinny Puppy in college -- just went and bought a tape after hearing about them. The lady at the record store tried to warn me. I thought the vocals were my tape player wigging out!

26. My family has stuffed animal Netjeri. A lot of them have specific food obsessions, some of them strange... one is a donkey hand puppet named Jojo who eats human hair.

27. I once spent hours writing a BASIC program for the Commodore 64 that was just a bunch of PRINT statements that displayed a scrolling artistic pattern that just kept going on for minutes. Stopped writing it when it ran out of memory. I tried to save it to cassette tape, but 40 minutes into the save we had a power outage.

28. Remember matrix arithmetic, which even algebra teachers don't know what it's good for? I use it at work quite a lot. I still don't really understand why it works though.

29. I once went on a 9-day canoe camping trip in the Everglades with my dad. We were hoping to see Halley's Comet but didn't. We did get buzzed by an F-18 doing better than Mach 1, saw a lightning strike about 40 feet away (we were on land at the time), had dolphins playing with us, suffered severe heat exhaustion, and counted 38 ospreys. I don't remember seeing alligators though.

30. I should have made that at least five different items.

31. We did see gators plenty of other times; once while on a day-long inner tube trip. I really recommend being in a real boat, or on a bridge, when you see them. :P

32. On another canoe trip, saw a meteor streak by so big/close that we could literally see flames. My dad swears to this day that he heard it.

33. I have about a hundred camping stories.

34. We once hung up our food in a duffel bag high in a tree to protect it from bears, and then the next morning, got up and walked off without it. Thankfully this was the second day of a 2-day trip. :)

35. To reduce the amount of weight we had to carry, we tried camping in hammocks a few times. This works in very good weather. The last time we did it was in 39 degree weather, with silver emergency heat blankets and jogging suits. We couldn't sleep at all and wound up sitting up all night burning all the palm fronds we could find.

36. Worst thing ever eaten while camping: half-cooked pancakes, with peanut butter, because we ran out of butane for our stove.

37. Worst thing ever drank while camping: creek water boiled and purified with emergency tablets, with lemonade powder added. Mmm, hot oily medicinal lemony water, just the thing for a hot day.

38. Most ever drank while camping, or ever: 7 normal sized bottles of Asti Spumanti (myself), chased with Killian's, chased with Bud. This was in the SCA -- the bottles were needed so a friend could rack wine she was making. I slept on a picnic table 'cause I was in no state to actually set up my tent. Woke up and swore never to do that again, but mostly just swore.

39. Best thing ever drank while camping: honey mead.

40. Last time drunk: 2002 Retreat, the year I was ordained. Stress was over, rituals were over, and my diabetes medication amplifies the effects of alcohol. Two Coronas, a lemon drop shot and a rum and coke. I was drawing hieroglyphs in salt on the table.

41. But drinking usually just makes me sleepy and not want to drink anymore.

42. One of my SCA friends went to school with Delta Burke (you know, from "Designing Women") and beat her for a lead role in a school play.

43. I saw Tom Petty at an Outback Steakhouse while visiting that same friend.

44. I have never owned a suit.

45. I have owned a set of camo, tactical vest, mag pouches, leg holster, sling, etc. for airsoft (like paintball without the "t").

46. At the last airsoft game I went to, a dog peed on my duffel bag and I didn't realize it.

47. Back at home, the cats did realize it, and peed on it themselves. Eventually we figured it out and it all went into the wash. The tac vest didn't survive.

48. Back in HS again... I got sent to the principal for shooting video of a class without the teacher's permission. Looking at the tape, I had 3 whole seconds, because I had stopped as soon as he said to do so. I was let off without getting in trouble, because the teacher in question was simply jealous that he wasn't the one teaching TV Production.

49. I helped my dad remodel two houses -- before getting hired by Simutronics the first time, and between the layoff and getting rehired. I know more about drywall and tile than I would ever really like to.

50. The second house had been rented by some prime idiots who threw parties in it, left garbage and cat poo and half-empty (or half-full) beer cans and condoms and diapers and broken glass lying everywhere. It took a full week just to haul out all the garbage. When we tore out some of the walls, we found dead rats. It was almost two years before my dad had the place in saleable condition, but it was quite nice when he was done.

51. I added this one because I wouldn't have liked ending on that note. :)