Eight Things

Fermi at Cosmic Cat (see Recommended sidebar) asked eight people to do a post listing eight things about themselves. I’m one of the eight. I told her I’d do it if I could think of eight interesting, but innocuous things. Here they are:

1. I’ve had a lot of jobs in my life. From start to finish: snow shoveler, grass cutter, paperboy, newspaper subscription sales (at fifty cents apiece, I made a lot more money than by delivering the paper), stock boy, janitor, laborer at a fruit packing plant (promoted second summer to lift truck driver), laborer at a ski resort, library assistant, vending machine maintenance and stocking, garbage truck driver, bartender, sixth grade teacher (football, basketball and softball coach and drove the school bus), life insurance salesman, insurance adjuster, fine arts and estate property salesman, and now, lawyer.

I guess I have a short attention span.

2. The men in my family have a need for speed. Two older cousins rode motorcycles, one of them raced them, on ice no less. Another cousin survived a wreck in a speeding Corvette. They had to cut him out of the passenger side foot well. One of my brothers has a pin in his ankle from a motorcycle accident. The other brother flipped an ATV a couple of weeks ago and broke his collar bone and two ribs. I out grew this family trait years ago. I drive at about 60 to 65 m.p.h. Just fast enough not to get killed by the rest of the people in Atlanta.

3. I don’t drink liquor, except a very occasional after-dinner drink at a nice restaurant. I do like good beer and wine. Good champagne is good on occasion.

4. I’d really like to get Lasik surgery, but I won’t. I’ve worn glasses (and for a short period, contacts) since I was in the second grade. I talked about it with an opthamologist once. He wore glasses. His comment was that it was a relatively safe procedure; but, that since he didn’t need it, he wouldn’t get it – relatively safe wasn’t good enough for elective surgery in his mind. That conversation stops me every time I think about it.

5. I’m either very good, or very bad, at things like Trivial Pursuit and Jeopardy!. The category is everything. Aside, trust your first answer, it’s almost always right.

6. Sad life lesson – acting like you know what you are doing is two-thirds the battle. Is that within the “thing” theme?

7. Women tell me things I don’t necessarily want to know. I’m great at being “Brother” or (more recently) “Uncle” Dave.

8. I am the world’s worst gossip, in the sense that I don’t. I was like that before I became a lawyer, and now that I have ethical obligations, it is even more ingrained. On a related matter, I almost never lie; but, if need be, I will avoid the truth with the best of ‘em. Good life lesson – you almost always get in less trouble by saying nothing rather than something.

I’m not, as they say, tagging anyone. If someone needs a subject for a post, I gift this one to you.