I haven’t done anything like this in a while so I thought I would list some factoids about myself. No particular order, and it’s pretty random.
• I enjoy repairing things. I’ve always been fascinated by mechanical things, I knew I wanted to be a Mechanical Engineer since I was 7 or 8 years old. I’ve rebuilt engines, transmissions, even disassembled and reassembled entire automobiles. I do almost all my own home repairs and I’ve even built storage sheds, shelves and fairly simple cabinets.
• I used to have a NASCAR driver’s license and I raced Stock Cars for several years.
• I’ll be 53 years old in May, but the interesting thing about getting older is that you don’t really feel any different. I feel about the same as when I was 30 and I often act and think like someone still in their 20s. I refuse to allow the calendar to dictate how I think or feel.
• I’m a trivia geek. A sponge for most information, as a matter of fact. I love learning facts and statistics, and I retain them well.
• I have eclectic musical tastes. When I was in high school I listened to ‘50’s doo-wop and rockabilly music and hardcore ‘60’s Country and I never really had a dog in the fight between the kids who argued the merits of Metal vs. Glitter Pop every day during lunch. Interestingly enough, once I became distant enough from the unpleasant memories of such debates I’ve discovered that I enjoy both genres. As well as Blues, Southern Rock, old-time Gospel with 4-part harmonies, and lots of other music. If it doesn’t make my eardrums bleed and it has good lyrics, chances are I’ll find some merit in it. The first five songs on my favorite mix CD are Bad Moon by Creedence Clearwater Revival, Cadillac Ranch by Springsteen, Strawberry Wine by Deana Carter, Midnight Special by Johnny Rivers, and Garden Party by Rick Nelson.
• I never owned nor fired a firearm from 1971 until I was employed here with the firearms manufacturer. Now I own several and I go to the range to practice about once every two months. When they had the Concealed Weapon Permit class at work a couple of years ago I went in with a pistol I had never fired before and it had been 35 years since I had fired a handgun at all. I put 43 out of 50 inside the 9 ring of the target, 50 of 50 inside the “body” of the target. I’ve always been able to focus intensely for short periods of time, that helped me in the class.
• I used to maintain a 185 average in bowling, but I developed arthritis in the joints that put the spin on a bowling ball so I had to give it up.
• Speaking of arthritis, I crashed my race car rather spectacularly when I was 21 and the neck damage still causes me to avoid looking any direction but forward and slightly downward for any length of time. The doctor says the injury lead to early arthritis or in his words, “I’ve never SEEN arthritis this bad in someone as young as you!” Thanks, I think…
• My parents carried me to my first automobile race when I was barely two years old. From the time I was 6 years old until I was almost 30 I attended anywhere from 30 to 60 races per year where the engines were unmuffled and I wore no hearing protection. By all rights I should have severe hearing loss but I can hear a mouse pee on cotton balls. Not counting the ability to tune out managers and spouses, of course…
• In the course of my career I’ve designed at least one thing that you have used. Maybe more. I’ve designed bathroom scales for Sunbeam, the most popular gasoline dispenser (the multiple-hose gas pump that every Convenience Store has several of out front) in use today, Weed Eaters, electric hedge trimmers, electric and battery powered circular saws, a cordless jigsaw, and now firearms.
• My favorite hobby is researching and collecting the history of American Motorsports, especially the history of NASCAR in the ‘60s and ‘70s. I occasionally get telephone calls from people who are restoring a vintage race car, looking for information or verification of the history.
• I dread those phone calls, as well as any phone calls. I stuttered from the time I was 6 years old until I was 14 or 15, and the difficulty I had with communicating left me with a phobia of using the telephone.
• I’m a night owl. Always have been. My dad had to get up at 4:30AM and be out of the house at 6am every single weekday of my younger years but my parents never made me go to bed at any certain time. They would go to bed around 8:30 or 9pm and just tell me to remember to turn off the TV and lights when I went to bed. Of course, in the ‘60s all the TV stations signed off the air at midnight but when I was a teenager I discovered that I could rotate the antenna to the Southwest and pick up the New Orleans TV signals from across the Gulf of Mexico after midnight. This pushed my bedtime to after 1am every night. I still follow the same pattern.
• I taught myself to read when I was 4 and to speed read when I was 7. My second grade teacher didn’t believe I was reading so well so she borrowed a device from the Central Office for measuring the words per minute a person could read and tested me. I was reading at more than 300 words per minute, orally, with the words being projected on a rough cement block wall in Second Grade.
• I’m EXTREMELY shy. Always have been. I open up around friends but it’s rare for me to be that comfortable with anyone. There are probably only two or three people who I open up totally with. And none of them are in my family…
I think that’ll be all for now. More than anyone ever cared to know about me. |
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