100 Things About Me

I didn't know about the whole "100 things about me" tradition for the 100th blog post until around post 230.

I have now made it to post 300. Here are my 100 things, a few posts later than traditional.

1. I was born in Provo, Utah
2. I lived the first year of my life at Wymount Terrace – BYU’s married student housing
3. I have four younger sisters
4. They were all born in Omaha, Nebraska, where I lived for the next ten years
5. Our family moved to Laie, Hawaii when I was 11
6. Music has always been very important to me.
7. I started piano lessons at 6
8. I stopped piano lessons at 11, when our piano failed to make the move to Hawaii
9. Our family owns two pianos now – one is over 100 years old
10. They are both in the storage unit right now
11. I really don’t play the piano very well.
12. But the years of piano lessons gave me a good foundation for music
13. I played the saxophone in the concert and jazz bands
14. And the xylophone in the marching band
15. Our marching band played in the 1983 Citrus Bowl parade
16. I earned the money for the trip by picking pineapples in the summer
17. I picked pineapples all four high-school summers
18. In the summer of 1983, or family bought a house on Iosepa street
19. We found some of the most amazing things cleaning out the back yard
20. One thing we found was a sled, which is not something you expect to find in an overgrown sweet potato patch in Hawaii
21. I gave the sled a fresh coat of paint and took it to the school as part of my Citrus Bowl trip luggage
22. The sled didn’t actually make the trip, but the look on the band directors face was so worth the effort
23. I also sang in the Laie Choral Union with my dad
24. My freshman year at BYU-Hawaii, I took three different girls to the same movie one week at our local dollar theater. I thought I was hot stuff.
25. Over the course of the next year, I dated two of the girls.
26. The first relationship ended on a date to watch Star Trek IV during opening week.
27. The second relationship ended on a date to watch Star Trek IV at the dollar theater.
28. I don’t much enjoy watching Star Trek IV
29. That year I played Young Ebenezer in Scrooge.
30. I also played Father Drobney in Don’t Drink the Water
31. I worked in the PCC Brass Band, playing the tuba,
32. And the baritone
33. And a whistle made from rolled coconut leaves.
34. I even took the mic several nights a week to MC the band concert
35. I applied for a job at McDonalds, but they turned me down
36. Which was good, because I ended up working at a flower shop instead
37. To date, the flower shop job was the most enjoyable I ever had
38. Especially giving neck rubs to the girls working on the flowers
39. I served my mission in St. Louis, Missouri
40. After my mission, I saw a cute girl in band class
41. I saw the same cute girl in the computer lab
42. A friend introduced me to that girl at a devotional
43. I asked her out to the movie
44. We saw Beaches. It was sad, and I cried
45. She said that was why she married me
46. Married couples at BYU-Hawaii live in TVA. We were in building R
47. I got a degree in computer programming at BYU-Hawaii
48. I was the Computer Lab supervisor my senior year
49. I had the David O. McKay scholarship there, too
50. And I was in three bands at the same time. That was crazy
51. After graduation, we moved to Austin, Texas
52. I got a job at Apple Computer
53. I learned that Technical Support is not my dream job
54. At my first performance review, my boss said “You’ve done a great job. If we were giving raises, you’d get a big one.”
55. After 4 years in Texas, we moved to Utah
56. Technical Support at Novell was not much better than at Apple
57. So I moved to software testing
58. And I became a dad
59. Twice
60. I love being a dad
61. I taught programming classes at Utah Valley State College part time
62. One day I asked myself why I was teaching computer programming, but not actually doing it
63. I didn’t have a good answer, so I asked my boss if I could start programming instead of testing
64. Now I write printer drivers for really, really big printers
65. And some small printers, too
66. We live in Texas again, this time just west of Fort Worth
67. I am fortunate that my company lets me work from home
68. I want to be a pilot some day
69. I have one hour in my log book
70. A friend of my dad took me on my first airplane flight as a child
71. Remembering aerobatics I had seen on TV, I asked if he could do any tricks
72. He did a couple of power-on stalls. That was good enough
73. Years later, that same friend flew us from Las Vegas to Provo. I got to fly most of the way
74. I signed up with Angel Flight the day I found out about it
75. I was the Utah Wing Webmaster for a while
76. I was the Utah Wing Leader for a while, too
77. When I was 10 I played little-kid football
78. I loved playing football, though I wasn’t very good
79. I kept garter snakes in a box under my bed
80. My parents found out about the snakes when Grandma announced that either the snakes went, or she went
81. Grandma lived with us for many years
82. I had a pet rat, too. It was officially sanctioned
83. I built model airplanes in my youth
84. I should have spent more time at the beach
85. I took up running a while back
86. I really need to take up running again
87. I love to read
88. I don’t get to read nearly enough any more
89. One of the best parts of being a dad is reading bedtime stories
90. My love for reading has long made me want to write
91. I tried writing as a teen
92. I hated everything I wrote as a teen
93. I finally don’t hate the things I write
94. I don’t love the things I write yet, but I think I’ll get there some day
95. I do love keeping a blog
96. I appreciate the people I’ve met while blogging
97. I hate Daylight Savings Time – won’t someone please rescue us from this fiasco?
98. I like watching Hayao Miyazaki movies
99. I think we should eat pizza and ice cream once a week
100. I turned 40 today (though I don’t feel a day over 65). Happy Birthday to Me!