107 Things About Me

As promised on one blog, I am a non-conformist, and therefore I preferred not to write "100 things about me" for my 100th post, but instead "107 things about me" since my birthday is 10/7. Oops, that has to be part one.

1. My birthday is 10/7


2. I have always considered seven my favorite number


3. And my lucky number


4. But I also like tens


5. Especially since my son was born on 10/10


6. My family has a weird habit of being born around holidays:


7. My daughter was born 7/5 - day after Independence Day


8. My son's fell a day after Columbus Day


9. My niece was born on D Day, 6/6


10. While we're at it, my wife and I were married 7/25, a day after Pioneer Day


11. My Mom was married 7/11 a day before her birthday, 7/12


12. She and her twin brother were born on their sister's birthday


13. This post is supposed to be about me, though, huh?


14. I am 5'10"


15. I always said growing up I wanted to be 5'10" or 6' because 5'11" men have a complex (ask one some time, and they'll explain they are 5'11" AND some fraction that reaches towards 6' because they know any six-footer will call them a liar if they claim to be 6')


16. I had horrible eyesight from a very young age


17. I used to have 20/400 vission in one eye, 20/250 in the other


18. and horrible astigmatism in both


19. I got LASIK in 2000


20. I sat up seeing at least 20/15 in both eyes


21. I could read 20/12 (the lowest reading they had on the chart) the next day


22. I read so much over the next several years, I think it strained my eyes a bit


23. So I wear glasses now to read my computer at work


24. And to drive at night


25. And because I need them that much of the day, I just wear them all the time now


26. But I can still see 20/25, eight years later


27. I have been going bald since I was fourteen


28. When I was twelve I was mistaken for eighteen (story is too long to share here)


29. When I was sixteen I was mistaken for thirty-five (again, another classic too long to share)


30. At eighteen I was mistaken for my best friend's father and pegged for forty


31. In college, most of my friends admitted to me later that they wondered why the professor was sitting in the middle of the class when they first saw me


32. I was first called a Little Old Man at ten, but I am still not "little" or "old"


33. I think I have actually de-matured since having kids, since I am more light-hearted now


34. Everyone says my children look like me


35. Actually they say my daughter looks like me


36. And her brother looks like her


37. But I think my son definitely favors my wife's nephews


38. On my side, I have two nieces


39. On my wife's side, we have twenty-three


40. I love all my in-laws, and I get along great with them


41. Even my sister's husband


42. He and I work together


43. We actually get along better now that we work together


44. We co-own a family business


45. We are middle men in the trucking business


46. We bought our first three trucks last year


47. Our timing was either great, or really bad


48. We're not sure which it is yet


49. I got my undergraduate degree from the University of Georgia


50. I majored in Accounting


51. I was probably the tenth person in my Dad's family to major in it


52. He was the first, and he claims it was because he saw a flyer that said "Careers with a future" and accounting was listed first


53. I got my degree so I could understand how to run a business and track its finances


54. I went back for my MBA, which I explained in this post last week


55. I focused my MBA in small business, finance, and consulting


56. My five-year reunion for that program is this weekend


57. While I was at UGA the second time, I joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which I also explained in the post on 54


58. I met my wife in 2001


59. We met in person in 2002


60. We married in 2003


61. We had our first child in 2004


62. We had our second child in 2006


63. I love my family very much, and I am very lucky to have them in my life


64. I am the youngest of three myself


65. My brother died twenty-two years ago


66. My surviving sister lives in Virginia


67. I live in my birth state, Georgia, and live about a quarter mile from my two parents


68. I am thankful for the close relationship they have with my children


69. I do not live in my hometown, though, but instead live six miles from my father's hometown


70. He moved here to start this business for a childhood friend who needed a job


71. I probably would not pick this place to live if not for my business and family connections


72. But I have come to enjoy the slower pace most of the time


73. My wife and I do visit Atlanta and Orlando (each about four hours away) fairly regularly to get a change of pace


74. We mainly go to those cities for the temples in them, though


75. We were sealed in the Idaho Falls Temple in 2004


76. I moved across the country twice since I married


77. I was born in '77


78. Which is another reason I love sevens so much


79. My best friend helped me move to Idaho


80. Then he came to my wedding in Southern Utah


81. He was my best man


82. In a few weeks, he's getting married in California


83. And I get the privilege of being his best man


84. He's my co-blogger on here, if anyone is wondering


85. We met on a football field seventeen years ago


86. We were on the same team


87. We then were on Academic team together through four years of high school


88. We never did much winning with either team


89. We had a lot of fun with both, though


90. I went to Georgia Tech first, but when I transferred to UGA, we became roommates


91. We've been like brothers for a long time


92. He lives in Arizona now, though


93. So we only see each other once or twice a year


94. It may seem to that I digressed a lot from talking about me in this list


95. But I had to include Todd, since he's my co-blogger


96. I wrote and self-published a novella in high school


97. I wrote and self-published my first 100 poems my second year of college


98. The novella stunk badly, and only a few of the poems were terribly good


99. I do know one of them has been used to propose marriage at least twice (neither time by me)


100. My proposal would be in the top ten of "worst proposals ever"


101. It would probably be prominently featured of my wife and I ever did write a book about our courtship, though


102. I'd like to develop some of the characters from a short story collection I wrote at the end of college into a novel or even a series


103. I haven't written anything long or complex in about seven years, though.


104. I have a medieval and oriental weapons collection, the beginnings of which I inherited from my brother (it stays at my mother's house by her request).


105. I love to read a large variety of books.


106. Most people would probably consider me a nerd, geek, or dork (including my wife).


107. Anyone still reading at this point probably agrees with that sentiment.