Sixteen Things

Tagged again

I’ve been tagged by Kris Johnson. This time I have to detail sixteen random facts about myself. ((I suppose it’s only fair as I did the same to him recently.)) Here goes.

The Things

1. I’m having a very hard time balancing things, time-wise, right now, which is why this is the first post of the new year.
2. I like cheese.
3. I’m Dvorak Simplified Keyboard touch typist. I went cold turkey from QWERTY during a week-long company shutdown. I made the decision mostly because I was having unbearable pain from typing all day. I type more now than I ever did then, and it’s no longer an issue. ((I’m not saying this would work for everyone, but it worked for me.))
4. I grew up in the small town of Abington, MA. There seem to be a rather large number of people I went to high school with who married people I went to high school with. ((I’m one of them, and so’s my wife.))
5. There were two things that drove me to buy my first Mac: Scrivener and Quicksilver. ((Exposé was a close third.))
6. As a result of my daughters’ obsession with Cinderella, I stumbled across and became fascinated by all the many variations of the story, which date back to first century B.C.
7. While I’m a huge fan of Podcasts I still haven’t found an optimal way to enjoy them that works for me. My reasons are detailed and varied, and I won’t go into them here. I will note that I think iTunes is the worst Podcast client I have ever used, and the fact that there’s no other way to get items into the “Podcast” menu of my iPod irritates me every time I think about it.
8. All my childrens’ middle names are the names of Doctor Who companions.
9. In the Fu Manchu novels, the title character was clean shaven. He did not, in fact, have a Fu Manchu. This is not about me, but the fact that I know this has to say something about me, right?
10. I have allergies. My tree allergy is so bad I can not eat tree based fruit. It’s not dangerous for me to do so, but it is uncomfortable. I imagine it would be like someone with a normal tree pollen allergy went out and licked trees all day. ((I have not tested this theory, as of yet.))
11. I have an embarrassing (to me) number of incomplete blog posts in draft form that I probably need to just delete.
12. I took sculpture three out of four years in high school. I loved making things out of clay, and I really miss it. I bought some polymer clay a while back thinking I’d start up again, then realized I don’t have any spare time.
13. I’m not sure I’m capable of doing things half-heartedly. I often wish I was.
14. I’ve been a fan of Doctor Who most of my life. I started watching it somewhere between the ages of two and four. I have very clear memories of watching “The Deadly Assassin” Part 2 in my grandparents basement on WGBH Boston. I somehow missed part 3, and it really bothered me (in fact I didn’t see how that cliffhanger resolved until I was in college). ((Anyone know dates when this would have aired on WGBH?))
15. My biggest work related regret was not being laid off from Sun, and having to quit instead. ((I don’t mean this to be insensitive to all the great folks that Sun let go who did not wish to leave. For me though, being laid off would have been preferable at the time.))
16. My oldest daughter and I are reading the Paddington Bear books together. She loves them, but even if she hadn’t I may have bought them anyhow because I was never able to find them all when I was younger.

You’re It!

That wasn’t so bad. Now to tag sixteen people ((This is the hard part. Don’t feel obligated anyone, I’m beyond reaching on some of these. Also I think other branches of this insanity may have tagged some of these folks… )) : Bohemian Delilaha, Kate Tsui, Matt Dursin, Mark Dursin, Holly Lisle, trillian1117, Evo Terra, Scott Sigler, Mark Musante, J.C. Hutchins, Mur Lafferty, Rob Diana, Unfocused Me, Leo Laporte, John Scalzi, and Denise Penney. ((Yeah, she doesn’t blog, but if she does it I’ll post it here.))