a rightly timed pause

The funny thing about the buzz around these lists on Facebook is that all the cool kids were doing it on myspace *years ago*.  They were called bulletins.  Still are.

…

1) In the past 10 years, I have lived in 16 different residences in 5 states, 2 countries, and 1 province where i’ve had 10 jobs, 2 daughters, and 1 dog.

2) The audience of my professional work rivals that of celebrities. Millions of people from around the world. Yet only a handful of them know my name.

3) In high school, I beat Mike Vrabel for a local tv station’s football player of the year award. Vrabel has since moved on to an All-Pro NFL career, winning 3 super bowls with the Patriots, catching a touchdown pass in 2 of them, and he was named to the Ohio State All-Century Team. He was born the day after me at the same hospital.

4) Speaking of high school, might as well get this out of the way. I was:

valedictorian
class president
national honor society president
homecoming king
captain : football/basketball/track/

academic challenge teams
chairman of various committees
all state, 1st team : football
all district : basketball
top 5 in the state: 100m, 200m, long jump
top 10 in the state: some math contest
an Ohio Space Scientist of Tomorrow
featured in the Cleveland Plain Dealer and USA Today
in a slam dunk contest
and a bigger deal in Akron than LeBron James was

… a big fish in a small pond

5) I have learned that past performance is no indicator of future success.

6) Science is my secret indulgence. I like to visualize how the universe came to be, from a single point of energy exploding into a cloud of exotic particles from which matter coalesced and clumped together under its own gravity to form black holes, galaxies, stars, and planets on which life slowly emerged from a soup of chemicals, crawled onto land and evolved themselves some big brains capable of self-awareness.

7) From the ages of 29 to 31, i did not watch TV.

8) I love sushi. I have also tasted satori.

9) In college, i wrote a computer program that played checkers. I lost every time. I also got a standing ovation at cameron indoor stadium once during a dunk contest.

10) During the dotcom boom, i was published in a trade magazine about programming genetic algorithms to simulate evolution and solve complex problems. I still get about 5 emails a year from people who find it online and are looking for more information.

11) I co-founded the company sportsvite.com with three of my friends.

12) I do not subscribe to any one theory/dogma/ideology/perspective in politics and religion - or any matter really. I like to think of all the alternatives as a vast buffet from which i can pick and choose what suits me best. If I had to boil it down, I’d say I was a Pastafarian Rational Anarchist.

13) 13 is my favorite number. It is also prime.

14) I have 28,636 photos and 10,446 songs on my laptop.

15) I play guitar, drums, keyboard, and bass. None of them particularly well. But good enough to sample and create loops in garageband.

16) My ‘goto’ karaoke song is ice, ice baby by vanilla ice.

17) Another indulgence of mine is street art. Renewal and decay. Layer upon layer. All in a single image.

18) The Matrix was very influential in shaping my worldview.

19) There is a 99% chance that I can beat you at just about any video game.

20) With dark energy accounting for 74% of the universe, permeating everything within it, and the fact that we still have no idea what it is - I believe that there are forces beyond our perception that operate in this world.

21) I believe in karma and the tao.

22) I am grateful for and humbled by the friends I have made.

23) I bounce between being social and anti-social. Not much of a middle ground there.

24) I want to live long enough to live forever.

25) The love i have for my daughters is indescribable. I am lucky to be their father.