It is funny. You take a break from blogging (reading and writing) and when you come back, strange things have happened.
Apparently I was tagged by Sam Gentile in the new game of Blog-Tag. And now I am supposed to write down five things about myself that people probably don't know and then tag five other people.
Ummm... okay...
- My first computer was a Ohio Scientific Challenger 4P (circa 1979 - age 10) on which my explorations of computer programming began. From there we moved to an Apple II+ (1980), then some kind of an Apple II clone that would dual-boot a CP/M z80 machine (~1982). After that came a long line of Intel PC machines that led to my current life as a Microsoft development manager. :)
- I played the French Horn as a kid when we lived in Maadi Egypt, a suburb of Cairo (Shout out to my CAC friends!). When we moved from Egypt to Denver, however, there was only a marching band and not a symphonic band, so I quit. Tried piano later, then moved to guitar. Eventually played in a few bands: a "power punk" band called Harrison and a fusion/jazz/groove band called Savvy Backbone.
- I never intended to be a professional software developer. In fact, despite having been programming since I was 10, I resisted it at every turn. When I started as a freshman at Colorado State University I majored in Physics, then Political Science, then Sociology, then dropped out and moved to Edmonton to load trucks at my uncle's company. After a year in the freezing cold of the Canadian north, I decided that perhaps I should go back to college. This time I decided to go ahead and study something easy... like computer programming. But still I resisted. I didn't want to get a job. I wanted to go to grad school and become a professor. After graduating, however, my good friend Mark Day talked me into submitting my resume to one of his clients. I landed the job and as my dad told me, "Once the money starts coming in, it is impossible to leave it and go back to school."
- Speaking of Egypt, when we lived there I went on a trip to Alexandria with a friend's famliy. His dad worked for the US Army as a helicopter pilot teaching the Egyptian army about their new Chinook CH-47s. One day Jamie and I went for a walk into the market and found a guy selling really cool WWII howitzer shells that they found in the desert. It didn't cost much, so we bought it and carried it back to the villa we were staying in. Needless to say, Jamie's dad freaked out. It was a live shell. And it was 40 years old. Whoops. He kicked everyone out of the house and called the police. We didn't get our money back. (On a related note, I will never forget when Jamie's dad took us up for a flight around the desert in one of those birds... amazing!)
- At my sister's wedding, the rehersal dinner was at a nice restaurant here in Seattle (she lived here back then). Since it was Seattle and not landlocked Denver, I decided to have a nice slab of seared Tuna. Mmmmm.... first bite... excellent. Second bite? better. Third bite... ummm... wait... what's that? There was something small, round, hard, and... metallic in my mouth. I spit it out onto the plate... and it was a bullet. Yes, a .38 caliber full-metal jacket slug. Now, I know Tuna are big fish, but I didn't know that they shot them after hauling them aboard ship. Now I know better. (And yes, I still have the bullet.)
Since I have to tag five more people, here is my list... I wonder how many of them will actually pay attention to this and follow-through?
