Tagged: Twenty-Five Random Things About Me

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

1. I generally like being tagged. It gives me a topic on which to write, even if it's random.
2. I've been playing with Fit Day, the online food diary, and it's starting to become addictive.
   
3. I'm wondering what the heck I need to eat to get enough potassium. Sersly? How many bananas? Do I look like a chimp to you? Don't answer that.
   
4. I find it amusing that Fit Day includes "sexual activity" among the things you can do to burn calories, above and beyond your general lifestyle activities.
5. I'm convinced that men who would chart this as an excuse to eat wildly exaggerate the frequency, vigor, and especially the D-U-R-A-T-I-O-N of their "activities." And they probably drive Corvettes or Hummers.
   
6. I am generally quiet and withdrawn in real life, especially with people I do not know well. I'm shy, and would be much more comfortable addressing a joint session of Congress on 15 minutes' notice than suffering through a cocktail party with 15 strangers. This has caused people who meet me for the first time to think I'm aloof and arrogant.
7. This impression also struck Mrs. Greyhound the first time we met. She thought I hated her. We were married two years later, some 20 years ago. The fact that a 5'8" blond flute hottie married me demonstrates that, at least for one brief shining moment, I had game.
   
8. I showed so little emotion as a child, my classmates--my friends--called me "Mr. Spock."
9. I used to be a professional French Horn player in a symphony orchestra.
   
10. I started taking horn lessons at age 10.
11. If you had to ride a school bus with a French Horn, you'd be shy and keep to yourself too.
12. I have played my horn on the stages of Symphony Hall in Chicago, The Academy of Music in Philadelphia, Carnegie Hall in New York, as well as in Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
    
13. The jocks on the bus have not.
14. I'm a recovering band geek. Yeah, I know it's hard to tell.
15. My daughter, although she plays the flute, does not want to participate in marching band when she gets to High School. She's high fashion, and can't abide the thought of wearing a feather on her head.
16. I'm a good test taker. Really good. No, sersly. Really, really good. I always considered it a contest--not with my class mates--but with the professor. I wanted to freak them out by finishing an hour early and getting a score that they'd have to disregard in computing the curve. The year after taking the board certification exam, they asked me to help write and grade it.
    
17. Other nicknames that have followed me through life, including into my law firm, are "The Brain," and "The Professor." Can't imagine why.
    
18. After feeling like I might die during my first half marathon, I thought I'd never NEVER be able to finish a marathon.
19. I've now done seven marathons. Still not screaming fast, the first being about 5:05 and the fastest being 3:49:21. Two of those came after the wee little 2.4 mile swim and 112 mile bike warm up. Slow or not, I am an Ironman.
    
20. The jocks on the bus are not. (Yeah, we had issues.)
    
21. Pre-triathlon and when I was in school, part of the reason I did not participate in sports was mortal fear of the locker room and all that nekkidness. Post-Ironman I have gone to a nude beach.
22. It was fun. No, it was AWESOME.
    
23. No pictures were taken. None.
    
24. I have never done a race that I was completely satisfied with. As much as it hurts at the time, I always wind up feeling like a bit of a wuss and question whether I truly pushed myself.
25. Even though I respect and enjoy the tag, I know some people don't like being the taggee, so I seldom tag back. If you like being tagged, you're it.