Eight Things Previously Unknown – No Tagbacks

Yesterday, Louis Gray tagged me for Eight Things Previously Unknown.  I normally don’t take part in these type of things but I thought this once i would give it a honest effort.

So without further ado, here’s eight things you probably didn’t know about me:

1. I was raised on a small farm and grew up doing the normal farm chores.  My father raised grain during my early years and then as times changed he focused mainly on beef cattle.  We had a Jersey Milk Cow for our private use.  I hand milked her and have hand churned butter.  I’ve also delivered a number of baby calves in my day.

2. In grade school I learned a valuable lesson.  It’s not speed but endurance and determination that’s often most important for obtaining goals. I learned this while playing tag during recesses.  I wasn’t the fastest kid but I could run nonstop, almost forever.  I found if I set my sights on one person and pursued them until they dropped I could tag anyone I wanted.  It got to the point where the kids would give up when I started after them to save themselves the pain.  I’ve always remembered that lesson.

3.  In the fifth or sixth grade a good friend and I saw an UFO in the sky during recess one day.  We both saw the exact same thing.  It’s shape and flight pattern were unexplainable, especially for that time period (1964-1965).  We told a few people but no one believed us and we didn’t make a big deal out of it.  I still remember it clearly.

4. I learned how to weld in high school and then taught my father.  I was proud to be able to teach my father something. On a farm, welding is a valuable talent and I not only welded for Dad but also for some of the other farmers in the area.  My welds were known for not breaking.  It’s a trait, if I build anything…it’s often done a little over the top.

5.  During my late teens and early twenties I raced dirt bikes, mainly Motocross and Cross-Country.  Wasn’t very good at Motocross but I have a number of cheesy trophies from Cross-Country racing.

6.  When I was in the Air Force  I was a Soviet Communications Analysis and did tours in Italy, England and at the National Security Agency (NSA), MD.  During this period I had a Top Secret/Special Intelligence/Photint security clearance.  I was Senior Reporter for my team while stationed in England and routinely wrote detailed reports and tracked/protected U.S. reconnaissance flights over the Baltic and Norwegian Seas.

7. When my first child was born I took care of him for his first 7 days alone. The day they discharged my son and wife (birth + 3 days) the doctors discovered my wife was bleeding internally.  Because my son had already been discharged and exposed to “outside” they wouldn’t take him back.  I was left alone with a three day old baby who had only been breast fed. I was scared to death something would happen to him.  We both survived!

8. My first real job in Information Systems was a System Analysis using RPG on an IBM AS/400 system.  Just prior to interviewing for the job, I bought a book to find out what RPG and an AS/400 were.  I got the job, taught myself what I needed to know, and ended up a few years later running the I.S. Department.

That’s my eight.

Now here’s the hardest part, tagging the next five people to reveal their eight unknowns.  If you’ve been tagged with this at some time in the past…my apologies.

• Richard Querin
• Paul Lester
• David Seah
• Tom Webster
• Paul Stamatiou

Technorati Tags: tagged, unknowns