25 Random Things

I’ve seen several people post to their Facebook page a “25 Random Things” note and I have been tagged in a few of them. What this means is that I am supposed to write 25 things about myself, my view on the world and other facts that most people don’t know about me and then tag 25 people so they can do the same. Well, I am writing the list but tagging it makes it seem like some strange chain letter scam. Plus I’m cross-posting this to my blog and it’s not like I ask random people to respond to any of my blog posts.

So here it goes. 25 Short Facts About Me.

1) I liken myself to an iceberg; you only see ten percent of me at any one time and ships have an unnerving tendency to ram into me.
2) Everything I write is 75 percent true. My novel, the blog, this list, it all contains a mix of truth and embellishments. It’s up to you to figure out which is which.
3) I wish I had enough faith in my writing to make one all out effort to see if I could make a living out of it. But the thought of doing my best at something I love and being told that it is not good enough scares me to death. The dream of success is preferable to the reality of failure.
4) My answer to the last question in the quiz given on “Inside the Actor’s Studio” is “Did I do a good job?”
5) I never intended to be 35 and single. I really thought that I would be a dad by now. This all just kind of happened.
6) I still can’t believe that I turned down the opportunity to study history under Stephen Ambrose at the University of New Orleans. When I finish my time machine my first order of business is to go back in time and kick my own ass.
7) I never intended on going to Notre Dame. I visited the school when I was 16 and I hated the place. I sent my scores there on a lark and I think I talked to Brian at a recruiting event in Chicago. I didn’t even intend to apply. I was going to get my MBA at night at the University of Chicago. But then I was invited to spend a few days on campus and fell in love with the place. Completely changed my life.
8) In retrospect, if I could choose any career it would probably be a combination sociologist / statistician. I’d love to have a job where I could explain how culture works.
9) The reason I became an electrical engineer is because it was universally considered the toughest major at Illinois and I wanted the challenge. The reason I specialized in power is because the lab stations in the Power Lab had big red buttons on them labeled “Emergency” that you got to press if you were concerned that your circuit was about to explode. I don’t think I ever considered myself more than a fair electrical engineer but I do have a natural knack at understanding how electrical grids work.
10) I am immensely proud of my blog. I’ve recently uploaded my 1,100th post (or roughly 700,000 words) and it has readers on every continent. For something that started as a silly idea that I assumed no one would read it has taken on a bit of a life of its own. It is certainly my biggest undertaking.
11) I take an amazing amount of joy out of being an uncle. My nieces and nephews constantly astound me.
12) I wish I had found a role at Sprint where I could have shown off all of my skills. I always seemed to be caught in the right place at the wrong time until I saw that my best move was to step away and take on a different challenge.
13) I miss Kansas City more than I ever expected. I left behind a lot of great friends in that town. Plus, it is just impossible to get a Boulevard Wheat out here.
14) Every day I begin to understand more and more what Woody Guthrie meant when he wrote “One by one my hair is turning gray, one by one my dreams are fading fast away.”
15) I have had two moments in my life that could have been taken directly from a movie script. One involves a rather circuitous stream of events that resulted in my being named to prom court and the other featured a heated argument in an apartment parking lot at three in the morning during a blinding thunderstorm.
16) I wish Riberdy was around so that I could thank him for all that he did for me. I wish I could tell Donna just how much she meant to me. And I really wish I could sit down with both of them one last time, have a great laugh and get that one last piece of advice.
17) There isn’t a realization that makes you feel any lonelier in this world than sitting on the edge of your bed on a Sunday night and coming to grips with the fact that the only person you talked to all weekend was a cashier.
18) I wish I could tell you why I remember that ALF’s real name is Gordon Schumway or that Tootie’s first name is actually Dorothy. I really don’t know why those facts are stuck in my brain. They just are.
19) The following moment is the psychic equivalent of being kneed in the groin. Be at a bar, talking to a woman that you are totally mad about, have her discuss how horrible her boyfriend is and call you “the perfect guy”. Because at the end of the night she’ll leave with him and you’ll leave alone. You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve been a part of that conversation.
20) I am slightly more stylish than I was before. This isn’t much of an accomplishment given that I have t-shirts that date back to high school. If I could go on one of those style makeover shows I really would.
21) At this moment I am working on my next five year plan. Since I was twenty I created five year plans to guide me through life. Whether they have worked or not I’m not sure but I really don’t feel like stopping now.
22) For the record, I pilot the Green Lion in Voltron. Super Dave pilots the Black Lion.
23) I think the world would be a better place if everyone would just sit down and listen to a Josh Rouse record every week.
24) My personal motto is from Michael Faraday (the founder of electrical engineering) “All of this is but a dream. Still, let us examine it with a few experiments.”
25) I don’t think I’ve accomplished a quarter of what I am capable of. Just wait until I start getting some confidence; then you’ll start to see the results.