I’ve been tapped for the 5 things meme. Surprsingly enough, it is from the person I least expected it from. You know this means I’m gonna push the Amish friendship bread again next year.
Ok so, let’s see if I can come up with 5 things, and more importantly 5 people to pass this along to.
1.
I used to live in South Dakota. From about 1980 to 1982 I spent some time in the great mid west. My mother met someone and he was from there, so we moved out there. I loved it actually. We lived on a couple of different farms (ie: rented) and we had tons of animals. Chickens, Ducks, Geese, Pigs, Dogs, Rabbits, and a Sheep. I learned how to shoot a .22 rifle, was a member of the Cub Scouts, and rode my bike on rural gravel roads.
One interesting memory I have from this time was the night I was going to go see E.T. with a friend of mine, but I ended up not getting to go because I lied about not feeding the dog that morning. Interestingly enough, I’ve never seen E.T.. Everytime I’ve tried it just hasn’t grabbed me enough to sit through it.
Living out in the middle of nowhere, I would spend countless hours walking around with my dog. Tracking down random birds, and just roaming through empty fields and such. I ended up befriending many of the animals on the farm since those were about the only accessible friends around. All of my school friends lived in the city. By city I mean places like Dell Rapids South Dakota.
Whenever we’d head into town one of the things I’d do would be to see how far I could stretch a dollar at the General Store (1 bouncy ball, 5 kraft caramels, 4 bazooka gums, 5 marbles, etc)
My first crush was a blonde girl named Jennifer, who was my partner in the square dancing class we had.
2.
Somewhat related to #1, my mother passed away when I was 9, while we were living in South Dakota. She was diabetic and had heart troubles, and ended up having a heart attack. It was this event that lead me to Washington state to live with my father.
What’s interesting about this is that this was of course a major intersection in my life.
Going one way continues down the path of staying in South Dakota and whatever life that entailed. Heading down this alternate path lead to Washington, college, and life as I know it today as a computer programmer in Seattle.
Once in awhile, during extremely introspective moments I sometimes wonder what my life would’ve turned out to be and the people I would’ve met along the way. I also think of all of the people that I have met and what that would’ve meant as well. Everyone who is in my life now, wouldn’t be.
Naturally, I’d have a whole separate set of people in my life.
Different? Yes. Better? Who knows. It’s a hard question to ponder. Do I have a better life now because my mom died? And how are we defining better?
3.
I used to draw. I used to love to draw as a matter of fact. I was fairly good at it, but definitely not a natural.
I was encouraged to draw from an early age, and my step grandmother was a painter so I was able to explore that medium during summer visits. If you’re ever over at my house, the painting in the master bathroom is one that I did. My wife had it framed for a christmas gift a few years ago.
In high school I took every drawing class you could take aside from independant study. Actually, now that I think about it, I think I did do an independant study focusing on portraits.
Alas, the furthest I ever took it was to start a portfolio for the Seattle Art Institute, but I never pursued it further. I was decent, but it would’ve been hard work to be really good at it. There were also a couple of other people who were just downright on a different level than I was, and that was the realization that I had. I was good but probably not good enough to get in.
Do I regret that? Not really. I tend to like to think that I can explore my artistic side of things in the things that I produce code wise. May sound phoofy and such, but it keeps me going.
I also dabble very slightly in photography, every once in awhile coming up with a good shot here and there.
Perhaps one of these days I’ll pick up the pencil again and see what happens.
4.
In my spare time I’m a cyclocross racer.
5. Trance Music.
I like it.
I don’t mean techno.
I mean trance, house, and progressive trance. It’s my juice of preference in the music scene, but I’m pretty wide open to all kinds of music. Rock, Jazz, Alternative, Classical, and even some Rap and God forbid Heavy Metal (really that was back in high-school). However, you’ll find me frequenting more DJ concerts than anything else. Artists such as Tiesto, Armin Van Buuren, and Ferry Corsten are among my favorites.
It isn’t about the crowds, it isn’t about the glow sticks and it’s not about the nightlife. I’ve got a related post that has been brewing for a few weeks, so I won’t go into this too much more and save it for that.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love my job. More to the point, I love technology, the internet, computers, and how to craft software to make interesting and cool things. With that said though, and if money was no object, I’d take an honest shot at following in the footsteps of the guys above.
Lucky five, you’re up: Dave, Bethany, Jill, Sara, and Lyza.
Sorry, it’s not my meme. I’d've included a couple others instead (you know who you are) but they don’t blog.
update: Updating the 5 links to the actual posts as they come in.