Tagged

My friend Libby tagged me with a meme. I understand I am supposed to tell some things people might not know about me. So, here goes . . . . . .

I was once kissed by Suzanna Somers . . .on live television! Not kidding. Easter Seals Telethon, I read a TON of books and raised some money, got on tv and she kissed me on the cheek. I was in 4th grade. She was on Three’s Company.

At one time or another, I have broken every single one of my fingers at least once. What can I say? I played rough as a young man.

I once flew an airplane. I was about 15, and my Uncle was a private pilot with his own plane and he let me fly it once when he was bringing me home from my summer on his farm. What a rush. He was sitting right beside me telling me what all to do, but I was flying the plane.

I once took a job as a scab (crossed a picket line during a union strike to work the jobs left open by the striking workers). Not too proud of that, but it was at a time in my life where I needed the work, and besides, my mom was part of management, so she was exempt from the strike and they needed the help.

I once had to show a professional truck driver how to back his 53 foot semi trailer around a blind corner into our warehouse. I was 18 at the time, and he had been driving trucks for 15 years by then. He was impressed, but not happy to be shown up by a punk kid.

I have flown over a million miles with one particular airline (who will not get props here since they continue to treat me like crud on those long international flights I take, even after enduring a million miles with them).

There are three things that are almost a guaranteed smile-maker for me. My wife, and our two kids.

I was once thrown out of the bed of a pickup while it was hurtling down a country road. I was wearing a brand new white down ski jacket that my parents had just bought me and I tumbled down the road for what felt like a mile, and as my friends gathered around me (while I lay motionless in the middle of the road) I clearly remember two things. One, I could not breathe and was gasping for air. Two, one of the friends was saying repeatedly “He’s dead! He’s Dead!” I was not dead. And the most amazing part was that the white down ski jacket was totally untouched in the whole thing. I walked away unscathed – not a scratch on me. Talk about the hand of God protecting you. My mom would have skinned me alive had that jacket been ruined. They don’t know about this incident (at least until they read it here someday).

So there you have it. Some of the antics I have gotten up to in my life that you might not have known about.

What about you? Anything you want to share?

Zoiks!

Hard to believe it has been so long since I last put something up here. So much has happened since then, so I will not try to update on it all, but rather give some highlights, and maybe a lowlight or two.

The last two months have seen lots of people coming and going through our part of the world. We had friends come visit, teams left, right and center, and we had trips ourselves. My wife went to Germany for 10 days while I held down the fort (mostly successfully), and most recently I had a trip to North America for about 3 weeks that included about 9 cities. Mostly a good trip, but those trips can take a lot out of me as well as my family who is still here at home. I got to have a day of golfing with friends one day and then about a week later I got about 300 miles of therapy (on a 1400 cc bike with lots of open highway and a bright sunny Georgia day) with my friend Peter, which did us both some good. I have been home for 10 days now, and tomorrow, we leave again.

This trip is to the UK and France. First the UK, where my wife will attend her annual meetings as part of our work, while the kids and I traipse off to two other cities in England to go see friends we know through our work here. We will travel by a bunch of different trains, which the kids are very excited about. Then about 6 days later we meet back up with mommy for a few days of vacation in the London area. We have all kinds of fun things planned for those days.

Then, off to Paris, via the Eurostar train. The boy is very excited to go on a fast train, and through a tunnel no less. Very cool stuff. This will actually be his second time in Paris, but the first time he was less than a year old, so he does not remember it except by our stories and photos. He is now going on 7, so he will remember this one.

The girl is also very excited about this trip. She ‘knows’ everything about all the places we are going, and tries her best to let us know exactly how everything will go. We really hope they are able to enjoy this trip. We are also looking forward to some down time ourselves. This last year has not been easy on us as a family, so some downtime is a good thing.

So there you have it. A brief update. Confirmation of my continued existence at the least.

More later.

Btw . . . . . Total driveway shovels this year: 0!