tarpify home >25 Random Things about me

Here's a list of 25 random things about me as based on the Facebook meme that circulated:

1. I once was thrown out of a country.

2. I've been on every continent except Antarctica.

3. On a number of occasions I've drunk AA MD-80's out of gin.

4. I've been to two Broadway openings, and at one, I got to tease Regis Philbin about his beloved Fighting Irish and how much the sucked at that point.

5. Once when flying LHR/ORD the 777 I was on mechanical’d, so I got to do LHR/JFK on a BA Concorde and then LGA/ORD on an AA MD-80.

6. I've sat next to or right behind Jamie Shea (ORD/LHR), Dave Brubeck (SJC/ORD) and Posh Spice (ORD/LHR, first time in International First) on flights before.

7. I once got to sit in the cockpit jump seat of a 747-400 on a ferry flight (this was waaaay pre-9/11)

8. I can visually identify planes and operator liveries at 5K feet vertical separation and 10-15K feet horizontal separation.

9. In my senior year, when my team's ISA project was due, I once stayed up a week straight using Mountain Dew and No-Doz. After I crashed, I slept almost two full days.

10. I've never tried an illicit drug. I got to college and discovered beer, bourbon and scotch...that was enough for me.

11. I can still code in PERL and S/ML; C/C++ not so much.

12. I once got to spend the night in the drunk tank because while completely sober I told (some may have called it mouthing off) a cop he had no probable cause to ask for my ID after I left a Bar and Grill (and hadn't had a drink to boot).

13. When I went to Boy's State I defended the Governor while the Senate attempted to impeach him for abuses of power, which I successfully got squashed. For a private client I was able to get the State Supreme Court to uphold a writ of mandamus compelling the county my client lived in to hold an election for County Coroner. And in my spare time I served as General Counsel for the State Bank. For those feats of faux-lawyering, I won that year's Best Lawyer award; I also was asked to interview to go to Boy's Nation, but was not selected (Moira, however did get to go to Girl's Nation). Honestly, I probably should have become a lawyer.

14. During college, I was asked back to be a counselor at Boy's State...one year as a practical joke, the two State Highway Troopers assigned to Boy's State (who I had become friends with) cuffed me and put me in the back of their cruiser and drove me around Bowling Green for almost 30 minutes with sirens and lights blaring.

15. I make a mean chocolate mousse.

16. I'm a fair shot with a pistol.

17. In between my sophomore and junior year in college, I worked three jobs; research assistant on a distant-learning research project, technical support agent for Pittsburgh On-line, and a PERL freelancer. I lived out of the office I had from the research assistant position to save on money.

18. I use the "Planets in the Foundation Series" naming convention when I have servers to name.

19. I've been known to use the phrase "on the gripping hand" in conversation with people.

20. The first MP3 I ever heard was "Torn" by Natalie Imbruglia.

21. I wrote my first letter to the editor when I was 12.

22. The farthest I've ever travelled for a wedding was to Quito, Ecuador.

23. I was once so drunk in Cork (spring break, senior year), that a Garda was nice enough to drive me back to my hotel and not ticket me for (very) public intoxication.

24. I used to live in Gilroy, the Garlic Capital of the World.

25. I once saw an episode of Cops being filmed (during a suspect pursuit).