Seven Things About Me

Ari Herzog “tagged” me to participate in this “meme”–a sort of chain letter blog of personal sharing. My instructions are to reveal 7 facts about myself that others may not know and then pass along the “favor” of this task to 7 other bloggers. What the heck. I will give it a shot:

1. Rush – Like many technical people, I was/am a Rush geek. I was listening to Signals just the other day and thinking how every song on the album, from “Subdivisions” to “New World Man,” has themes you can see reflected in my writing here.

2. Go Raiders! – When we lived in California, I went to as many Oakland Raiders games as I could, drinking too much and occasionally donning face paint. Then we moved to New England. Then the Raiders kind of died. Like yesterday. Oh well. I’m rooting for the Patriots now, but maybe someday I will be able to wear my Rich Gannon jersey again with pride…

3. Pistol Team – as an undergrad at MIT, I joined the pistol team. I have not handled a firearm since moving back to Massachusetts in 2002, but I think firearm affinity is partly genetic, coming from The South as I do.

4. Smoking – I was a smoker until 2002. I quit just before I went to work for QuitNet.com, a company that uses the web and other forms of counseling to help people quit smoking. My stats: 2470 days, 6 hours, 55 minutes and 54 seconds smoke free. 24703 cigarettes not smoked. $4,940.00 and 6 months, 8 days, 16 hours of my life saved! My quit date: 3/10/2002 5:00:00 PM.

5. Gary Hart – In 1988, I took a semester off from MIT and joined Presidential candidate Gary Hart’s volunteer campaign. Part of that experience included several weeks in New York City where I spent hours per day riding the subways asking people to sign petitions to get his name on the ballot.

6. Pit Bulls – In 1998, we adopted two pit bulls. Paris died recently, but Tasha is still going strong and remains a great “ambassador” for this often maligned and misunderstood breed. She is the most patient dog I can imagine as she suffers the attentions of our three kids.

7. I can’t swim. Off and on, I have tried to learn but I just sink like a stone and have not figured it out beyond treading water. Someday, I have to, as I really want to do an Ironman Triathlon…

So those are my 7 facts. Now, I must tag seven people to join me and everyone else before me by following these rules:

• Link your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.
• Share seven facts about yourself in the post.
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged

I tag the following seven people and hope they will take up the challenge:

• Penelope Trunk
• Wendy Waters
• Pamela Slim
• Alison Driscoll
• Ann Handley
• Rebecca Thorman
• Rebecca Wells