One of my cousins sent me a note on Facebook – you know, one of those viral kinds that you get and are asked to send out to a bunch of people and it goes on and on.
I don’t normally jump into those things, but in this one intrigued me. He had put together a list of 25 interesting facts about himself. Among other things, I learned that my cousin had been stung by some type of jellyfish and that he had delivered peaches to John and Yoko in Japan.
In his note, he requested that I make a list of 25 things about me and send it back to him along with some people that I want to learn more about. It took me about a week to think of 25 things to put on my list. It wasn’t that easy to come up with at least 25 halfway interesting things about me, and yes, there were plenty of things that I wasn’t willing to make know publicly.
Here’s the list I came up with…
1. Love to travel – have visited 35 of the 50 US states and 8 foreign countries
2. Fanatic about motorsports – have competetively drag raced motorcycles and have raced sprint karts
3. Have driven a motorcycle from 0 to 145 mph in 9 seconds
4. Would love to make a full time income on the internet
5. Started smoking when I was in the third grade. Quit smoking later that evening after my dad found out
6. Graduated from college 11 years after I graduated from high school
7. Fired from my first full time job at Mervyns. Today they are out of business….hmmmm
8. Been to 6 indy car races – 5 as a guest of the Bobby Rahal team
9. When I was very young, my dad told me that the big, black Seafirst Bank building was the box that the Space Needle came in. It was quite a few years before I realized that didn’t make any sense
10. Addicted to chocolate – the darker the better (up to 85%)
11. Drink an average of 18 oz of Tree Top juice every day
12. The first time I made chili, I entered it into a contest and took 2nd place
13. Worked in the interpretive center at Ft Simcoe, giving tours and telling stories about it’s history. I’m sure that the guests never even realized that half of the stories I made up.
14. Can go a full day without a latte, but my wife can’t
15. Started a friends pant leg on fire while attempting to refill a disposable butane lighter with gasoline
16. I never forward those emails that go around without first verifying them with Snopes
17. I once wore ski boots to marching band practice
18. Made the state honor roll on a math exam in high school – one of only two students from my school to score at that level, but by the time my children reached the 8th grade, I could no longer help them with their math homework
19. For all 4,529 people who have asked me, “Do you play basketball?” The answer is, “No, are you a jockey?”
20. The odds are pretty fair that I might become father-in-law to 2 pastors
21. I’ve hiked to the top of Mt St Helens and looked down into the steaming crater
22. The first Mongolian Food restaurant I ate at was in Moscow, Russia
23. Paying half of one year of my daughter’s college cost me almost as much as I paid for my entire college career.
24. Did a double flip off a 200 ft high bridge (with a bungee attached)
25. I keep a journal in blog form at http://highvantagepoint.com
i scored very well on my math SAT, but also could not help my kids from about 8th grade on. made me laugh to hear you say it. i have been to the Indy 500 and Twin Ring Motegi races. We met Dario Franchitti and Michael Andretti waiting next to them in line at the Tokyo airport Northwest Airlines counter the next day….
So, did you have a nice visit with Dario and Michael, or were they trying to keep from attracting attention? I really enjoy getting into conversations with drivers, but it’s difficult to find one who is not in a big hurry to be somewhere else.
One time, in Portland, I went into the restroom just before we needed to get to our seat to be ready for the start of the race. As I was standing at the urinal, doing my business, I happened to notice that the short little fellow who was using the urinal adjacent to mine was none other than Alex Zanardi.
I’ve decided that I must bring good luck to the drivers, because Zanardi went on to win that race. It was his first win of many CART series races (including two world championships).