100 Things about me...

I...

1. am of Scottish, Irish, Welsh & Rroma ancestry.

2. love pasta!

3. speak read and write passable Korean, and can write over 1000 Chinese characters.

4. speak (barely) passable gaeilge (gaelic), but my reading comprehension is much better than my spoken/listening.

5. was raised mostly by my grandparents.

6. play the bagpipes.

7. love to cook.

8. talk too much.

9. think way too much.

10. could stand to lose a few pounds.

11. love spicy food.

12. like to sit quietly in the dark, and just about everybody finds this mildly disturbing and scolds me for it.

13. carry at least one book everywhere I go.

14. miss my grandparents.

15. served in the U.S. Air Force.

16. served in the U.S. Army.

17. have nine tattoos (and want more!)

18. periodically wake up a little while after falling asleep in an extreme state of sexual arousal and wake my wife up so that I can jump her bones.

19. can mime almost any accent well enough to fool native speakers.

20. have jumped out of airplanes approximately 1000+ times.

21. have realized that almost everybody underestimates me in some way or another.

22. don't think my mom wanted me.

23. often know what will happen next or what someone will say next before it actually happens or is said.

24. rescue stuffed animals that people have lost or tossed because I feel bad for them and this embarrasses me sort of...

25. love the sea and often seek it out for solace when things aren't right for me.

26. sort my M&Ms out by color before I eat them (if time and place allow).

27. eat my food items one at a time. (I have gotten ribbed about this by numerous people, but still do it)

28. love to walk.

29. like to listen to foreign languages that I do not understand just to put the sound of it in my ears.

30. love to learn.

31. suffer from baker's anxiety whenever I bake anything.

32. am grateful to my wife because she has taught me to be a better person in many, many ways.

33. am sometimes afraid that my wife will grow tired of or bored with me and leave.

34. regret quitting guitar lessons when I was six years old.

35. have been stabbed and shot (superficially in the hand).

36. once let a friend down, and still regret it terribly.

37. love to celebrate holidays, even holidays that I make up on the spot in order to celebrate them.

38. don't think that anybody is below the sightline.

39. am proud of my son.

40. regret not having the capability to do more (financially and materially) for my wife... though I have been steadily working on it and improving, I am not even in the ballpark, unfortunately.

41. once came very close to taking ordination vows to become a zen buddhist monk, but decided at the last minute that it wasn't my true path.

42. am almost always thirsty.

43. love sex.

44. seldom feel as though I truly 'fit in'.

45. love history.

46. put A-1 sauce on my eggs.

47. have no sense of the passage of time.

48. strongly resist complying with what I consider to be nonsensical rules.

49. LOVE kissing my girl.

50. find old graveyards beautiful and peaceful. I am comfortable in the presence of the dead.

51. observe people very, very closely, and can often learn more about their thoughts and feelings than they would ever believe possible.

52. cannot understand why so many people want to shut out knowledge about anything that they don't already know about.

53. was thought to have a learning disability as a child, but was tested and found to have an extremely high IQ. So far this hasn't prevented me from doing some incredibly stupid things.

54. am a very playful person and like to joke around quite a bit.

55. am an extremely spritually oriented person.

56. can adapt to just about any situation.

57. slam a book shut loudly when I finish it.

58. announce to whoever is present that "THIS IS MY WEDDING SONG!" whenever 'Amazed' by Lonestar plays. (I doubt that anyone cares but me... but I still do it).

59. feel guilty for not training regularly (in martial arts/boxing/etc.).

60. feel guilty for not practicing regularly on the bagpipes.

61. am a loner.

62. love museums.

63. am a part-time bartender, and proud of it because my grandfather was a bartender.

64. am equally proud of my family's Jamaican heritage (my mom's side came to the U.S. from Europe via Jamaica. They originally were transported there after the battle of Culloden, and came to the U.S. in the 1930's).

65. am an artist.

66. love to write.

67. am interested in any and all religions, but don't subscribe to any particular one.

68. have been to the north pole.

69. have been under the sea in a submarine.

70. have crossed the equator.

71. have been in jungles, deserts, swamps, mountains, and just about every terrain that exists.

72. am proficient with almost any personal weapon that exists, but don't ever want to use one against any living thing.

73. was accepted into the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus Clown College as a teenager, but didn't attend (my mom put the squash on it).

74. was accepted into the Merchant Marine Academy at Piny Point Maryland and didn't attend (my mom put the squash on that too).

75. am a school-trained man tracker.

76. have earned black belt ranks or equivelant in Kodokan Judo, Hakko-Ryu Jujutsu (took and passed the test, but wasn't awarded rank as the association didn't award menkyo-kaiden (teaching license) or dan rank to children, and my sensei (my dad) passed away before I was old enough, Wing-Chun gung fu, Illustrisimo Arnis De Mano, Do Hap Sool, Tang Soo Do Moo Duk Kwan (Soo Bahk Do), Matsubayashi Ryu, and Kempo.

77. am completely at home in the water and can swim, snorkel and scuba dive, and love to do so!

78. suck at most sports.

79. love my wife's family.

80. am proud of my Rrom (gypsy) heritage, but don't know much about it.

81. love butterflies.

82. enjoy walking in the rain.

83. would rather structure my work around my life, than my life around my work.

84. always name our Christmas Trees.

85. feel guilty when I take the Christmas Tree out to the curb after the season is over and mentally apologize to it and thank it. (I know... I'm a sap)

86. once owned horses and miss them (though I couldn't afford them and wouldn't have time to care for them properly).

87. love to sit in our garden on spring and summer mornings and drink a cup of tea.

88. am often overwhelmed by the beauty in the world.

89. learned, after 12 years of police work, that it not the right vocation for my spirit.

90. am grateful for all of the wonderful things in my life.

91. have a facility for learning languages.

92. am allergic to sweet potatoes.

93. have slept in a monsoon rain on the side of a runway at San Juan Airport, Puerto Rico with commercial and military aircraft taking off and landing a scant few feet away from me. (It was one of the best naps I ever took!)

94. believe that the most important things are the times I spend and the memories that I make with those that I love.

95. measure my worth by who loves me, and by how deep that love is.

96. feel proud to be a member of a very exclusive club -- my marriage.

97. am amazed by how beautiful my wife is. It hurts my chest to look at her - I can't breathe sometimes...

98. don't think there is anything that I cannot accomplish, given the proper motivation and resources.

99. love trees..

100. believe that every creature is a person, and that they think, and feel, and should be treated so..... even if they don't display those thoughts and feelings the same way that I may, and even if the thoughts and feelings that they have are completely different than my own.