100 Things about me

Well, Miroslav did it, then Mimmen did it. What can I say? I caught the bug. Here are 100 things about me in no particular order.

1.) I started out living in the city, was raised in the country, and now I live in the city again. I miss the country.
2.) No matter how much I tried as a child to enjoy the woods and mountains of my hometown in Northern California, I still feel like I took it too much for granted while growing up.
3.) This is especially true now that I live in a flat city in the Central Valley.
4.) I love the mysteriousness of forests.
5.) I love the sound of crickets on a summer night.
6.) I love the endless sound of a creek running.
7.) I prefer rainy, cloudy, and/or gloomy days to sunny days.
8.) I believe there is no better sound on earth than a thunderstorm.
9.) If the day is sunny, I prefer it if there are lots of poofy white clouds in the sky.
10.) I loved the heat of summer when I was a kid. Now I hate the heat, and I am always looking forward to when it will be cold again.
11.) As a child growing up in the woods, I could shoot guns right behind my house.
12.) As far as I am concerned, pop music peaked during the mid-1980s to early 1990s.
13.) I can name by memory, the release year (and usually the time of year) of practically any top 100 pop song from that same era.
14.) The two types of music I hate the most are today’s rap/hip hop and country music.
15.) I believe today’s hip hop signals the death knell of our society.
16.) Sometimes I pop up in bed in a panic when I begin thinking about the impossibility of how big the universe is, and how small it makes me feel.
17.) I wish I was better at keeping my wits about me when under pressure.
18.) This usually manifests itself when I am having a political debate with someone and my vast knowledge is not accessible to me because my brain freezes up.
19.) I am envious of people who don’t care a whit of what other people think about them.
20.) It has taken me a long time to learn how to not worry about what other people think of me; but sometimes I still find myself worrying.
21.) I love to read, especially about history, politics, and current events.
22.) When I was single, I would spend hours browsing in bookstores.
23.) When I was a kid, I would say that books were my best friend.
24.) I look at people of the political left as perpetual children who refuse to grow up; instead of Mommy and Daddy paying for everything, now they look to Uncle Sugar.
25.) I look at my wife every day and wonder how I was given the honor to marry such an incredible woman.
26.) My wife is one of those women who doesn’t need makeup to look beautiful.
27.) I love my children more than I ever realized I would.
28.) I think I am a better father than I ever thought I would be.
29.) I worry every day about what kind of country my children will grow up in.
30.) I want to expose my children to country living as often as possible. I don’t want them to grow to be city slickers.
31.) When I was a child, I predicted I would get married at the age of 28. I ended up getting married at the age of 28.
32.) Even though I am now 34, I don’t feel appreciably different mentally than I did when I was 17 or 18.
33.) I hope I still feel that way when I’m an old man… however old that is.
34.) I continue to be awed at the incredible experiences that my father lived through as a police officer and a soldier.
35.) I feel lucky that he has shared many of those experiences with me.
36.) When I was a kid, I thought my mother was the smartest person in the world (don’t worry Mom, you are still in the top three).
37.) My relationship with my brother has always struck me as being more businesslike than brotherly. When we see each other, we don’t hug, we shake hands.
38.) I have more fond memories of attending junior college than I do of attending high school.
39.) As far as I am concerned, my junior college was the high school I never got to attend.
40.) I didn’t fit in at my high school.
41.) I didn’t fit in in my hometown.
42.) It does not bother me to spend long periods of time by myself.
43.) It took a little bit of time to convince my wife that enjoying spending time by myself did not mean that I did not enjoy spending time with her.
44.) Being around too many people for too long of a time leaves me mentally and physically exhausted.
45.) I spent 12 years in the Army; 4 years were active duty, 8 years were in the National Guard.
46.) The biggest reason I left was the fact that the Army was being taken over by wimpy, ineffective officers and NCOs, and lesbians who were thick as thieves and showed gross favoritism toward other lesbians.
47.) If I had to do it over again, I wouldn’t join the military, but at the same time I would have regretted it if I hadn’t.
48.) I never regret having joined the military. I saw and did things I never would have gotten to see and do otherwise.
49.) I spent two years in Germany and the former Yugoslavia constantly thinking to myself that I couldn’t believe I was standing in Germany and the former Yugoslavia.
50.) I feel blessed that I have gotten to live and travel in Europe.
51.) I can’t stand it when people let their dogs bark all day and night. Not only does it bother the people in the neighborhood, it also tells me that the dog is being neglected.
52.) I am a dog person.
53.) I find cats to be rather useless.
54.) I believe in God
55.) As a child, I attended a Methodist church; now I attend a Presbyterian church.
56.) I don’t agree politically with much of what the Methodists and Presbyterians believe.
57.) I consider myself a Christian, but I often find myself questioning if everything about the Greatest Story Ever Told really happened.
58.) I question the validity or context of a lot of things that are written in the Bible.
59.) I consider the Bible to be one of the greatest books ever written.
60.) I have the 12th Psalm hanging on the wall by my desk at work.
61.) At church, instead of listening to the sermon, I often tune the minister out and read the Bible instead.
62.) As a teacher, it is heartening for me to watch certain students live up to their expectations.
63.) As a teacher, it is hard for me to watch certain students live up to their expectations.
64.) I find it amusing and tragic as I watch so many of my middle class students (of whatever ethnicity) do their best to act like ghetto thugs.
65.) As a teacher, it is tough to see some delinquent students’ whole lives mapped out already even though they haven’t even lived their lives yet.
66.) It is even tougher to know that I really have no control over it.
67.) I would never let my son and daughter attend the school at which I teach.
68.) I wish there was a legal and moral way to stop some people from reproducing.
69.) For going on 20 years now, my favorite sport is track and field.
70.) When I was in college, I didn’t think I was a very talented runner.
71.) I look back now on the times I clocked in track and cross country, and I wonder how I was ever able to run that fast.
72.) I am happy that I still have contact with friends from college.
73.) I don’t ever remember not being able to read.
74.) I have always been fascinated with the passage of time.
75.) I sometimes have to remind myself that historical events actually happened and there wasn’t a musical score playing in the background.
76.) I believe in an unfettered right to keep and bear arms.
77.) I believe that one of the greatest evils mankind ever invented was socialism.
78.) I love to float motionless under water in the deep end of a swimming pool or a swimming hole and watch my floating body as I listen to the ringing in my ears.
79.) If I could live anywhere in the world, I would live in Mt. Shasta, California.
80.) I lived next to Mt. Shasta for three years when I went to junior college.
81.) If I have to live in a city, I am glad I live in Sacramento.
82.) I miss the relative lack of ambiguity of the Cold War; there was little argument over who our enemy was.
83.) Autumn is by far my favorite season.
84.) I love to drive so much, sometimes I wish I could be a truck driver to make my living.
85.) I have always wanted to act in a play, but I am too shy to go through with it.
86.) Somehow, teaching in front of a group of students doesn’t seem to bother me.
87.) As a child, I was terrified of public speaking; now look forward to the opportunity.
88.) I feel both mortified and angry when black people call each other “Nigga”. I think of how many black people were killed or injured in the fight not to be called that anymore.
89.) I don’t think I’m addicted to the Internet, but I probably spend too much time on it.
90.) I would love to write a screenplay; about what, I have no idea!
91.) I once won a game of Trivial Pursuit where it was me versus a team of ten players (no it wasn’t junior Trivial Pursuit!)
92.) I did not receive my Batchelor Degree until I was 29 going on 30.
93.) I went in the Army after junior college because I knew I was too immature to go on to a four year university.
94.) I am currently one class and one comprehensive exam away from getting a Masters Degree in Education
95.) The only reason I am getting the M.Ed. is to increase my salary.
96.) I wish I knew more about how to fix cars and things around the house.
97.) I wish I was better at math.
98.) I wish I was fluent in a foreign language.
99.) My all-time favorite beer (for almost 10 years now and counting) is Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. I highly suggest you give it a try!
100.) My wife convinced me to make this list, because I didn’t think I could think of 100 items. I guess my life is more interesting than I thought.