5 Things You Never Knew About Me (I’ve Been Tagged!)

It appears I've been invited into an electronic game of tag that is making its way around the blogosphere. Yesterday, I was tagged by Maria Palma of The Good Life, and today by Lyman Reed of Creating a Better Life. I guess that makes me "IT" -- TWICE! :-)

I'm not what you might call a "big name" blogger, so I feel pretty special getting tagged by some well respected fellow bloggers. Thanks Maria and Lyman!

In order to play, I’m supposed to reveal 5 things that others might not know about me. As it turns out, this is much harder than I thought. I sat down last night to work on this post and couldn't think of anything that seemed interesting enough to put on the list. Is my life really that boring?? :-(

I think I need a dimly lit room, a soft leather couch, some aroma therapy scents wafting around, and someone asking me questions about my life in a disgustingly soothing voice.

But since I don't see any leather couches around here, and all I smell at the moment is my dogs breath smacking me in the face, I'll have to do this on my own.

Here we go...

1. As a teenager, I used to camp out in the back yard all the time and then sneak out in the middle of the night to go on "missions". I'd meet up with friends at a predetermined location and then we'd wander around the neighborhood from one house to the next going swimming in everyones pool. Yes, I do believe we might have gone skinny-dipping once or twice. Thinking back, it was all pretty stupid because we had to be absolutely silent so nobody would wake up. What fun is that? Keeping the neighborhood dogs quiet (or avoiding them) was a bit of a challenge too. OK, we really didn't do this THAT much. Maybe just a handful of times.
   
   
2. Also as a teen, I was on probation for an entire year and had to pay restitution to help repair a motel room that was destroyed during a party that got out of hand. A friend and I showed up at this party and everything was going fine. A couple hours into the party, some idiot decided to jump up and punch a hole in the ceiling. That started a chain reaction of other idiots doing similar things and pretty soon, the room looked like a bomb had exploded. During this unfortunate motel massacre, one of my "friends" picked me up and tossed me onto the bed - quite violently I might add. My foot hit the wall pretty hard and broke through the plaster board. I SWEAR that was the full extent of my involvement, and I promptly left right after that because I didn't want to be part of what was happening. Needless to say, my name was brought up to the police as one of the party goers, and I had to pay the consequences right along with everyone else. Listen up kids!!! Who you hang around with will dictate the twists and turns your life takes - regardless of how good of a kid YOU are. As my wife always says, "You ARE who you hang with," so hang with GOOD, POSITIVE people.
   
   
3. All the way up until I was 21, I thought tattoos were the absolute dumbest thing anyone could do to their body. Well, I was sitting in the boat shop of the USS Fulton AS-11 (NAVY ship) one morning watching and listening as everyone compared tattoos. Of course, I was razzing all of them and telling them how stupid they were for permanently marking their bodies like that. Later that day, my buddy asked me if I wanted to take a drive into Massachusetts with him because he was planning to get another tattoo on his arm. I'm always up for a road trip - so I was in. While he was getting his "tat", I was browsing around the shop and looking at all the cool artwork. Long story short.... I caved. I now have a small tattoo (about 2" x 2") on my left upper chest. It's the head of an eagle and he's wearing a sailors "dixie cup" hat. There's a banner under him that reads "U.S.N." C'mon, give a guy a break. I figured it would make a nice souvenir of my time served in the military. The best part is that I was heading to the Jersey shore that weekend to meet up with my parents and one of my brothers at a beach front condo they had rented. I still had the bandage over my tattoo so I decided to tell them I'd been shot in the line of duty. :-) My mom cried. :-(
   
   OK, here's another childhood one I just thought of...
   
   
4. As a small kid, probably age 10+ (that would be in the late 70's, early 80's), my ALL TIME FAVORITE TV show was B.J. and the Bear. Remember that one?? It was the truck driver with the chimp and they went around getting into all sorts of crazy situations. Of course, there was also the hot blond with really big....um, eyes. Anyway, for the longest time, my goal in life was to become a truck driver and have my own monkey that I could travel all over the country with. Yea, that happened. NOT! Today, I absolutely hate driving and can barely stay awake long enough to get out of Ohio on the turnpike.
   
   And last, but not least....
   
   
5. I get emotional and cry easily during "feel good" movies (also known as "chick flicks"). Of course, I try to hide it from everyone else in the room. Then I dry my eyes (incognito) and tease my wife and daughter for crying. Sure, go ahead -- laugh it up!
   

Thanks to Maria and Lyman for "tagging" me into the game. This was definitely a fun little exercise. And I suppose that means it's my turn to tag 5 other fellow bloggers.

Let's go with these fine folks:

1. Steve Pavlina
   
2. Empress
3. Jesse Mecham
4. Charles Kirk
   
5. Terry at SuperAff
   

TAG -- YOU'RE IT!

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