While normally I avoid participating in chain-letter type things, for some reason this one caught my imagination when it showed up in my Facebook news feed this morning. It is spreading like an extremely infectious disease on Facebook, and I’ve been amused and surprised about the things I’m learning about friends of mine, so I decided to be a vector in the epidemic. I’d also love to find out who patient zero is, though that might be hard to determine. Anyway, I published this on Facebook originally, but for those non-Facebook users among you, I am re-publishing it here on my blog.
- I spent a summer working on an assembly line in Munich building 3-Series BMWs.
- I have played guitar onstage at The Fillmore in San Francisco and the Cabo Wabo in Cabo San Lucas.
- My wife almost bailed on our first date after she found out I was taking the Concorde to London with a buddy – she thought it was a ridiculous expenditure. Luckily, I got to fly supersonic (while it was still possible on commercial airlines) AND marry her.
- I was a slugger (batted clean-up) on my little league baseball team for several years running.
- I was born in Wiesbaden, Germany.
- One summer, I was a roadie for the Colorado Springs Symphony.
- Years ago, I saved a Super Shuttle van full of people on the way to the airport (including myself) from rolling into the tracks of an oncoming SF Muni train.
- I once served Rosa Parks dinner. Yes, that Rosa Parks.
- A band I was in performed Stevie Wonder’s Superstition with Thomas Dolby sitting in on keyboards.
- I think Golden Grahams is the best cereal ever. Even when those delectable grahams scratch the roof of my mouth.
- If there’s a chocolate chip cookie within 5 feet of me, I will eat it, no matter what. This has become a problem as my metabolism has slowed with age.
- I am by no means an athlete, but I’m a halfway decent skier and racquetball player.
- I stole two Herman Miller office chairs from Oracle in 1993. Sorry Larry.
- I played the trumpet for seven years.
- I’ve only broken two bones in my life: my pinky (left hand) and my toe (right foot). Both stupidly.
- I rear-ended two vehicles (one was parked, both while in the snow) within a few months of getting my driver’s license at age 16. Haven’t had an accident since.
- I attended the 1995 New Year’s Eve Phish show at Madison Square Garden. At one point, the band began implanting a device in my brain in order to control me, which was very alarming, given I had previously thought they were a force for good. Or maybe it was the acid.
- The last time I cared about professional sports was when the Redskins won the Superbowl back in the Joe Gibbs, Joe Theisman, Art Monk and John Riggins era.
- I’ve won two things in my life in raffles/drawings: a stuffed animal named Filbert T. Squirrel from my savings and loan when I was eight years old and opened an account, and, two years ago, a Toshiba HD DVD player after visiting a booth at CES. I miss the squirrel.
- I was once briefly engaged to another woman before meeting and marrying my wife (she called it off, I’m the lucky one).
- The best song lyric I’ve yet written rhymes “Don Quixote” with “booty”.
- The only time I was ever grounded was in seventh grade when I threw a water balloon at a passing delivery truck and it shattered the side view mirror. I fled from the scene and was later picked up by the police and had to be driven home though my neighborhood in the backseat of the cruiser. This happened while I was supposed to be babysitting my little brother.
- I’ve never been in a fist-fight.
- My favorite band of all time is Steely Dan.
- I’ve probably seen Trading Places more times than any other movie, with the possible exception of the original version (the Gene Wilder one, not the Johnny Depp one) of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
Go ahead, publish your own list too. You know you want to.