5 Things You May Not Know About Me

I'm really not a big fan of blog memes, but when Brinstar throws down it's hard not to respond. And often, trash talk a bit - but not this time.

I hated programming all the way through college.
I mean hated. I used to put those BASIC programs that they had in the back of computer magazines in and never got anything to work (yes, I realize how much that dates me). My LOGO class in college was a complete joke - I wrote a progam to convert roman and arabic numerals that would crash the parser on the third try. I only took it because I knew I would suck at math even more. I didn't orient my way to scripts and compilers until I got into web development professionally and PERL was the only way I could get a calendar to run. PERL was perfect for me, actually, since it focused so much on wrangling text and not so much PEEK and POKE.

Funny thing is that if I didn't have this early reaction to it - I'd probably be a professional game developer today. My early interest in coding was always about games.

I almost drowned during lifeguard training.
And the irony has never been lost on me.

I wasn't just in a fraternity, I was once the Vice President.
Which, by the way, also made me the PledgeMaster. This tidbit usually freaks people out if they've met me personally. My house, Acacia, though, was pretty non-conformative in general. Still, I loved those guys and my time with them. Plus, a fraternity brother helped me get my first job at State Farm and got my career in web development off the ground.

I've been circled by a shark.
Whitetipped ( I think ) in the Virgin Islands. Cousteau called this breed "the most dangerous". This one, though, was a local that frequently scared swimmers out of its favorite eating areas but had never hurt anyone.

My best writing professor was David Foster Wallace.
I took his class when he was teaching at ISU. I wasn't enrolled - I knew Dave socially and he invited me to sneak into the class. Best writing experience I've ever had. Lynn DeVore of Wesleyan was pretty great too and got me to just write tons and tons of material which I probably wouldn't normally have - but Dave taught me two great lessons: just write and expect rejection. I hate bringing this one up because there's no way that it doesn't sound like name dropping - but Dave was just a friend I knew for a while in college. I love his short stories but I've never even managed to finish Infinite Jest.


There you have it. Instead of tagging others specifically (I think most I know have been thusly tagged), I'll just say that if you've commented here or I've commented at your place - tag.