I've Been Meme-Tagged...

What can I say, Dale got me.

So here goes.

1. I was in ROTC in college, and was commissioned into the Army as a 2nd Lieutenant of Armor. Then the first Bush conducted the post Gulf-War-Reductions in Force and I was unable to find even a reserve unit, and I spent the majority of my term of service in the Individual Ready Reserve. I was officially discharged in October of 2001. I took advantage of the time and attended both Basic Parachuting School and Armor Officer Basic Course. Good times, good times.

2. I was drafted onto my high school quiz bowl team after a trivia contest in one of my classes caught the attention of the team's captain.

3. I didn't own my first car (actually OWN, that is - not got as a hand-me-down from my parents) until I was out of college. It was a 1987 Mercury Lynx wagon and was possibly the best deal I've ever gotten on a vehicle until my current vehicle - my bike.

4. In fifth grade, I played Winthrop Paroo in our community theater version of The Music Man. Yeah, the Ronnie Howard role. According to my dad in the audience, I was so convincing that one of the old ladies watching the production said that it was too bad I had that awful lisp, otherwise I'd have been a fine singer.

5. When I was 11 or 12, I got two stitches in my face when I ran into a friend's brace while playing football. According to hearsay, he hit me so hard that it pushed his orthodontia schedule forward by six months (he was a bit bucktoothed at the time). I never saw a cent of it.

6. I used to be a lifeguard at Alice's Wonderland in Alma, a waterslide park that has gone under at this point (my brother refers to it as "Alice's Eyesore" now). That was my first real summer job.

7. I took classes after graduating from Notre Dame to try to get a teaching certificate, but got so fed up with living at home that one day I scoured the newspapers for a real job just to get out. I found one as a computer trainer... and that's what led to my current position.