(8/2018: I really need to update this, it has been a while since I wrote it.)
I had been meaning to do this for a long time, but when Shane posted his, I was motivated to do my own. So, at the risk of disqualifying myself from running for office any time in the future, here’s 100 Things about me:
1. I was born at Misercordia Hospital in Bronx, NY.
2. Although I only lived in New York for the first two years of my life, I still consider myself a New Yorker.
3. I have the attitude and driving style to prove it.
4. We moved to France for the first grade and lived there for five years. We then lived in Belgium for another year.
5. I consider myself to still be fluent in French, but a Frenchman might think otherwise.
6. I’m not allowed to give blood because I lived in Europe for six years (mad cow scares). I don’t mind because it relieves me of the guilt I feel about being too squeamish to donate.
7. I was all-conference in cross country during my senior year of high school.
8. My dad pestered the athletic director at my school until he put up my picture next to all the other all-conference athletes. That was the last year they put up those pictures.
9. I still regret not beating two opponents in my last high school race. Beating them would have meant our team would have raced another day.
10. I continued running after high school, culminating with the Marine Corps Marathon, which I finished in 3 hours and 26 minutes.
11. I injured my hip that day (some sort of repetitive stress injury) and it has never gotten better, in spite of physical therapy and cortisone injections.
12. I’ve resigned myself to living with the pain for the rest of my life.
13. I’m married to Lisa Marie (no relation to Presley). She doesn’t have a blog.
14. Our daughter is Eleanor
15. I graduated from Michigan State University in 1996 with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics.
16. I didn’t know what to major in, so I picked the subject where I got straight As.
17. I still don’t know how I BSed my way through most of my classes. I think I had a knack for giving the answers the teachers wanted to hear.
18. Even though I majored in math, I suck at calculating the tips on restaurant bills.
19. I was in my church’s youth group at college.
20. I don’t go to church much any more.
21. I hate office birthday celebrations and going away lunches.
22. I like my co-workers, and I’ve been at this same job for over 10 years.
23. I’m morally conflicted about working at this company, but I won’t quit because the money is too good.
24. If and when I leave this job, I don’t want a big farewell lunch with a bunch of people I’ve barely talked to for 10+ years. And I don’t care how that makes me look.
25. I consider myself a geek, but I am usually well behind the technology curve.
26. The only time I get new tech toys is when I get them for free. I’ve succeeded in getting a Tivo and an iPod this way.
27. You’ll pry my Tivo from my cold dead hands.
28. I’m an avid curler.
29. I say I enjoy curling because of the social aspect, but I like the competition more.
30. Especially the winning.
31. My knee started hurting from curling last year (seriously!), and I worry that it will never heal right, like my hip.
32. I’ve never broken a bone in my body.
33. I once got hit in the chin with a metal baseball bat. I only needed a couple of stitches on the inside of my mouth.
34. I’ve never worn braces. My upper teeth are near perfect, but my bottom teeth reflect the fact that I’ve never had braces.
35. My favorite place to live is our current hometown, Vienna, Virginia. It was in the top 5 of Money magazine’s best places to live in 2005.
36. If I could be anywhere else right now, I’d be sailing my own boat on the Chesapeake Bay.
37. A sailboat, not a powerboat.
38. I’m great at starting projects, but not finishing them. Only 60+ more things to go….
39. I’ll try any kind of food at least once.
40. I don’t have any food that I like particularly more than the others, but if pressured for a preference, I’d say Thai food.
41. I tried out for Jeopardy! once, but didn’t make it past the first round.
42. My dog is named Max. He’s the first pet outside of goldfish that I’ve had. We now also have 3 black skirt tetras in our fish tank.
43. I was once threatened by an MSU hockey player over the phone because of a letter to the student newspaper I wrote decrying the post-game violence of the previous night’s hockey game.
44. I was too freaked out to come up with a good comeback until after I hung up the phone.
45. The Washington Post published a letter of mine asking for more coverage of Ralph Nader in the 2000 election. They also ran a picture of me riding my bike to work.
46. I’m a sucker for a Starbucks Grande Caramel Macchiatto.
47. I hate myself for patronizing Starbucks.
48. I never drank coffee until, as an intern, my boss asked me, “You drink coffee, right?” after showing off his fancy coffee machine. The only answer was “Yes, sir!”
49. My nickname in high school used to be BDer, for my initials “B.D.”, but I was never totally convinced it didn’t mean something else.
50. My nickname in college was “Weasel”, but I didn’t find out until everyone else had been using it for a year. My roommate was given the “best pet” award on our floor that year because of my nickname, and that’s how I found out.
51. The nickname was well deserved, but a story for another time.
52. I had Lasik eye surgery in July 2005.
53. I hate when people ask me how my eyes are doing.
54. I think I try too hard to fit in, picking up the trends and mannerisms from people around me rather than doing what I like most.
55. I think that came from moving around a lot as a kid.
56. I also think moving around helped me be more comfortable around new people, even if it is a slightly phony me.
57. I was my office’s Fantasy Football champion in 2004.
58. I’m a Yankees, Knicks and Giants fan. I told you I consider myself a New Yorker.
59. I have a baseball autographed by Don Mattingly.
60. I love the fact that the Yankees can buy virtually any player they want.
61. I’ve only ever bought myself one professional sports player’s jersey: John Starks #3 for the Knicks. I told you I’m a New Yorker.
62. I love 80s hair bands. Even Warrant. I dragged my pregnant wife to Def Leppard and Bon Jovi concerts in 2003 because I never saw them in the 80s.
63. My brain is full of lyrics of virtually every song I heard growing up. I wonder what useful information those lyrics are taking the place of.
64. I like rap music, but realize that there is no one whiter than me.
65. I like karaoke.
66. I can play almost every sport I try adequately, but no particular sport outstandingly. In 2006, I started playing baseball in a league again.
67. They filmed a scene from the movie “My Life” two blocks away from my house in Naperville. Watching the filming of that scene was one of the most boring nights in my life.
68. I love to drink beer, and even took classes on beer so I could sound smarter when talking about it.
69. I occasionally brew my own beer and wish I had a “kegerator” to store it in. I got a kegerator on loan from my neighbor while he’s in France for the next three years.
70. I wish I had somewhere that I could go and order “the usual.”
71. But I don’t want to be so predictable as to have a “usual.”
72. I despise cheaters, but I’m not above cheating myself.
73. I used to think Alex P. Keaton was cool.
74. I picked Alexander as my middle name for my confirmation so that my initials could be “B.A.D.”
75. I was a cook for the dorm cafeteria in college and actually thought the food was decent.
76. I worked at Wendy’s part of one summer and can’t say the same for them.
77. I don’t care for dessert. I’d much rather have pancakes, hash browns and bacon. You can save the eggs. I love places that have breakfast 24 hours a day.
78. I can’t fathom why people would put ketchup on their eggs. Or their hot dogs.
79. I honestly think that my actions can jinx someone or something. This includes, but is not limited to, television shows that get canceled (Firefly, John Doe, Freaks and Geeks) and sports teams (the Yankees losing to the Red Sox in 2003 because I gloated too much).
80. I like to think that I am smarter than most people, but I won’t take an IQ test to prove it.
81. Outside of working for the cafeteria and Wendy’s, I’ve only worked one day of physical labor in my life (helping out my buddy’s bricklaying brother). It was the most rewarding day of work I’ve done.
82. The one place I want to visit most is Ireland.
83. I read several other people’s “100 Things” to get ideas for what to put on mine.
84. I generally like women with curves, but I had an odd obsession with Kate Moss in college.
85. I never had a girlfriend break up with me, I was always the breaker.
86. I think this is because I was always too chicken to date out of my league.
87. I know for a fact that kissing someone who smokes IS like kissing an ashtray.
88. I smoked for about a year, then quit. Very few people knew this until I wrote about it on my blog.
89. I’m a horrible pen pal. I love getting letters, but not writing them.
90. I find Brits to be funnier than Americans. Maybe because they don’t resort to the fart jokes? Or maybe because fart jokes are funnier with an accent!
91. I’m a sucker for physical comedy. I secretly liked watching “America’s Funniest Home Videos” for the clips of toddlers hitting their dads in the nuts.
92. I realize I just jinxed myself.
93. I was in Petra, Jordan on 9/11. They couldn’t get me out of that country fast enough.
94. I vacationed in Bali a couple of weeks before the bombings there. See what I mean about the jinxing?
95. If I could pick the actor who plays me in my life story, it would be John Cusack.
96. I will randomly Google exes and girls I had crushes on, but I have yet to find any stalker-worthy information.
97. I used to think that either everyone around me was robots, or that they were actors, and cars and people were set in motion when I walked by. If I had thought of this at a time when I wasn’t ten, I could have written “The Truman Show.”
98. Boxers, but not so much silk.
99. I’m glad this didn’t turn into a list of 100 of my favorite things.
100. I tried to avoid saying anything in this list that would end up being dated, because I know I’m too lazy to go back and edit it when anything changes later on.
The D's 