This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Ruby Buzz
by Jared Richardson.
Original Post: I got tagged!
Feed Title: 6th Sense Analytics
Feed URL: http://www.6thsenseanalytics.com/?feed=rss
Feed Description: The 6th Sense Analytics corporate blog
Have you seen the "Five Things You Don't Know About Me" tags going by? David Starr tagged me and I'm finally getting around to posting my five things.
I'll bet you didn't know I once removed asbestos... asbestos removal paid for the first half of my college education. When you see all those blogs trying to run up their Google Adsense revenue by talking about diseases like mesothilioma and asbestosis... I actually know what those words mean and how you can become afflicted with them. I'm not at a higher risk for these nasties because we always wore respirators during removal. A good respirator with a HEPA filter is actually pretty clean air. It's also a good way to spend time in every county in state of North Carolina... living out of a hotel room and eating fast food... if you really want to do that sort of thing. If you haven't this lifestyle, it's not as glamorous as it sounds. ;)
Second, my first computer was a TI 99/4A. I had a killer cassette drive interface that I used to store of all that high power Basic code I wrote or copied from magazines. I have no idea how slow it was. I bought the rig at a yard sale for thirty dollars... I made the thirty dollars mowing yards. After owning it for a while, my curiosity got the better of me and I took it apart. After playing around and connecting various wires, I finally found the wrong combination and burned it out. Fortunately, the regional TI repair facility would take back a TI and give you a refurbished one for only thirty dollars. :) After that I learned my lesson. Now I only take apart things when I'm sure I can replace them.
Third, I dropped out of college at NCSU and moved to Knoxville, Tennessee to attend a really cool church. My parents were thrilled. :) Fortunately, NCSU let me come back after I got married and realized that I didn't want to remove asbestos and live out of hotel rooms the rest of my life. So now I'm consultant and speaker... I travel over the US, staying in hotel rooms... (hey! wait a minute!!) So I started at NCSU in 1988 but didn't graduate until 1997. I suppose it would sound better to say I took a sabbatical. :)
Fourth item... I sold my first software program in 1991... and I got an A for it! I was at NCSU and working part-time (removing asbestos) for D.H. Griffin. I heard one of the managers talking about how they needed a better way to track what tools went to each job site. And my data structures class (CSC 311) had a team project where we picked our own program to write. It was a perfect fit. We sold the program for a few thousand dollars and got an A on the project.
Fifth and final trivia item... I chased my wife for two years before she even remembers meeting me! She worked at a bookstore and I went in every day for two weeks buying CDs, trying to get her attention. One of the other employees, a nice older lady, finally took pity on me and told me she had a boyfriend. Two years later I met her at a concert for a local group... the second time she noticed me and we started going out :) She was working for a cleaning company at the time... I once tried to scare her by jumping around a corner with a vacuum cleaner help up at head level. She didn't even turn around, which was her undoing. Her long hair (which had been permed that afternoon) got sucked up into the vacuum cleaner where the hair was promptly wrapped around the rolling brush bar. As it wrapped up her hair, it pulled the vacuum cleaner out of hands.... so the vacuum cleaner fell to the floor, taking the head of my new girlfriend along with it where they both bounced off the floor. At first I thought she was crying, but she was laughing so hard she had tears on her face. And she still married me... so I figure she got what she deserved by marrying me. No one can say she didn't have plenty of warning. ;)
How's that for five facts you didn't know about me? Hopefully not too boring. :)
Previous Topic
