Tagged

It’s the last slow work day before the holiday; I’m waiting for a build to finish; so I’m playing along – tagged by Chris at Austin Contrarian. I’m supposed to list seven facts about myself and tag seven others. Facts cherry-picked to mesh with stuff I’ve posted here on the crackplog.

  1. Despite still being a strong advocate for bicycle transportation, I haven’t ridden my bike for about 3 years now. I could physically manage a ride, most days, but the consequences of overdoing it are severe – the last time I pushed it too hard, I had to ride a wheelchair in JFK and AUS on the way back from a trip to Manhattan. I’m saving the feet for some rides with Ethan when he’s old enough to learn how to ride (any day now) – another flare-up could make it a permanent non-option. The really ironic thing is that my new suburban office is on a perfect bike commute – a route I used to use to get out to Loop 360 for a fun loop on the weekends.
  2. I actually have handicapped plates on the older Prius because of that, yet I rarely park in the handicapped space (most days I can walk well enough, and always think people are shooting me the crapeye when they see I’m not in a wheelchair and not elderly).
  3. Despite being a fervent critic of PSU homers and at times Joe Paterno’s seeming insistence on destroying the program he single-handedly built, you don’t get any more tried and blue than me – I won a contest as a child for having the most members of my family in the alumni association, and actually have a framed award somewhere for it; some of my aunts babysat for Joe Paterno’s kids at least a few times; and my grandparents used to go to church with his wife. I was in the Blue Band for four years, and still wear my dorky band jacket (just last night to the wonderful mall up in Cedar OhMyGodWhatTheHellAmIDoingUpHerePark). I think there’s even a picture at home of me as a baby being held by Paterno at some kind of family day at the stadium in the early 1970s, but my memory may be exaggerating things. Will check in a few days.
  4. I have never ridden one of the new (Portland and following) generation of light rail lines – I have driven and walked near a couple of them a few times (San Jose, Phoenix’s under construction), but never actually had an opportunity to ride, nor have I been able to justify a weekend trip to Dallas or Houston to ride.
  5. I work across from Westlake High School. I loathe Westlake and Rollingwood, people who live there, and everything they stand for. It is difficult to contain the revulsion and not speed the hell out of here after every work day, but then I remember that Baba got a ticket for something like 1 mile over the limit here (i.e. “Driving while Clearly From Austin”).
  6. I constantly get accused of being a developer by the granola mafia, which is funny, because I am a developer. Of software.
  7. I hate Wal-Mart. I really really hate Wal-Mart. Which is why the whole Northcross thing was so funny. Well, one of the reasons.

I bet nobody will see this given the break, but I’ll tag DSK, Gregg, Teresa, Steve, Thomas, Mike (for motivation to increase his blogs/month to greater than 0.1), and Chris.

m1ek

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