1. My second-most embarrassing moment was when my family attended a church picnic at a park when I was probably 8 or 10 years old. The playground was down a big hill from the parking lot. When we parked, I saw friends down on the playground swinging on the swings, so I took off to join them. I didn’t realize that the pouring rain from the night before left the hill rather slippery… and muddy. I wiped out, and when I stood up I was a complete mudball. I was also really embarrassed.
2. My first-most embarrassing moment happened in band class my junior year of high school. My older brother was a senior, and he’s very musically gifted, so the band director had him playing tuba (which is what I played) for a couple of songs, since I was the only other tuba player in the band. At a quiet point in the middle of rehearsal, Joel ripped maybe the hugest fart I’ve ever heard, and then immediately spun toward me and gasped, as if he couldn’t believe what I’d just done. By that point it was too late to deny my guilt, and the whole room fixed their eyes on me. I swore I’d never talk to Joel again, and so far I haven’t. (okay, that last part’s not true)
3. My brothers and I completely made up at least a dozen games and sports over the course of our childhood including gutterball, bull, fumble, and tennis-home run derby. I’d be happy to explain the rules of any of these to you if you’d like.
4. Although I love the game of baseball, nothing captures my interest like NFL football. I love to watch it, analyze it, talk about it, and do anything else you can do with it (I’d say “play it” except I don’t think I’d make the team).
5. In #4 I should have said “nothing captures my interest like NFL football except the television show The West Wing. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and venture a guess that there are few, if any, people in the world that have watched that show as much as I have or know more about it than I do.
6. When people break certain laws (going a few miles over the speed limit) it doesn’t bother me at all, but when they break laws that put the lives of others in grave danger (running red lights – which I see here in Denver at least once or twice a day) I get instantly livid. There’s very little that makes me as angry.
7. I’d like to live in Iowa again someday.
8. The Princess Bride is my all-time favorite movie. Tied for second are A Few Good Men, Good Will Hunting, and The Shawshank Redemption.
9. As much as I love the movie The Princess Bride, the book is probably ten times as good. No joke. Read it. You’ll laugh your head off. I did literally. Luckily, I was able to reattach it without the help of doctors.
10. I’ve been to six countries in my life, if you count a layover in Amsterdam, and if you also count California. The United States (duh), Canada (band trip, senior year of high school), Turkey (school trip, summer after my sophomore year in college), and Jamaica (missions trip, summer after my junior year in high school).
11. My first car was a 1991 Pontiac Grand Am (red). I shared it with my brothers, and I wasn’t excited when we got it because I’d told my folks that my only vehicle preference was a four-door, and the Grand Am was a two-door. My older brother named it Jean Claude (as in Jean Claude Grand Am). He thought he was hilarious. When I took driver’s ed the car we drove was a red 1999 Grand Am (four-door). I loved it, and I vowed that someday I’d own one. Ironically enough, that’s the exact car I now drive, because I married a woman who owned one (don’t worry, there were other reasons why I married her). Other vehicles I’ve owned: 1988 Chevy Celebrity (turd-brown), 2006 Yamaha FZ-6 (motorcycle, blue), and a 1993 Mercury Cougar (silver).
12. If money weren’t a factor, I’d spend my life traveling. There are about 500 places on my “places I’d like to visit” list. One thing I realistically hope to do at some point in my life is drive from Vancouver to San Diego down the Pacific Coast.
13. I love BIG dogs, and I hope to own one someday. It’ll probably be a yellow lab or lab-retriever, but if it was entirely up to me, it’d be some kind of mastiff/saint bernard/great dane/german shepherd kind of mix (did I mention I like BIG dogs?)
14. I have a crush on Judge Marilyn Milian from The People’s Court. I won’t elaborate.
15. I don’t understand why Word 2007 (2008, if you’re a Mac user) saves things in the default format “.docx” instead of “.doc”. All it means is that if you don’t have the new software (which is itself really annoying) then you can’t open such documents.
16. I think that Morgan Freeman has a fantastic narrator’s voice (see The Shawshank Redemption), but even that is not enough to save March of the Penguins. It’s a Discovery Channel documentary. That’s it. Why was it a glorified theater blockbuster? I don’t know.
17. I once drove from Pella, IA to some little town in Missouri on a Tuesday night with my brother and his wife (though they weren’t yet married at the time) for supper.
18. I doodle, and I doodle a LOT. My doodles almost entirely consist of symmetrical geometric shapes and patterns. Analyze that however you like.
19. I prefer Letterman to Leno, but I think the funniest person on television just might be Ellen Degeneres.
20. Even though Keith Green is not terribly popular with my generation, he is one of my favorite lyricists and singers ever.
21. I swear more now that I’m a student at a conservative evangelical seminary than I ever did before I was one (but don’t worry, mom, it’s still not that much).
22. I’m much better at owning, categorizing, organizing, and displaying my books than I am at reading them (and I owe my organizational style to Kim – but not the stuff about not reading my books).
23. My wife and I frequently play Taboo together, but since it’s just the two of us, we obviously can’t buzz each other.
24. Coupons are a way of life.
25. And the number 25 random thing about me is… (drum roll please) actually, you have to wait for it until I stop working at my present place of employment, because as long as I work there, I can’t be completely honest about it. (sorry for the letdown)
