It's A Major Award: Padded Cell Princess

A week or so ago, The Padded Cell Princess gave me this award: 

So you, Princess, you want learn more about me?  Well, let me give 5 not so random facts about me.  I figure that since I've been blogging for over 3 years and 650 post, some of the newer folks around these parts might enjoy a little cheat-sheet.

1 – I started writing as "Scope" in the fall of 1984.  For 3.5 years, I wrote a column for my college newspaper under the pen name "Scope".  I probably averaged over 3 posts a week on whatever topic was on my mind.  It was very much like blogging LONG before the concept of a "blog" had been thought up.  Here's a LINK to a post with one of those "Daily Other" columns.

2 – In 2002, I was unemployed for a year.  (53 weeks to be exact.)  Being a bored tech guy with a tonne of free time, I set up a GeoCities account (remember those), where I would post content for friends and family.  There was a section on the site call "Scope-Tech".  To post anything to the site, you had to load the whole HTML page and it was a real pain in the @$$, so after my sabbatical was over, I just didn't have time to devote to keeping it up-to-date.  GeoCities is now dead, but I did resurrect a lot of the Scope-Tech content in my earliest blog posts.

3 – In 2008, I was at the summer party for some college friends.  (Yes, doing the math, you will see I've know them a LONG time!)  The wife had had various renditions of this party most every summer since graduation, and I'd been to most.  At this party was another one of their friends who went to the same college that we did, but started after we graduated.  The funny thing is, this was the first time we'd ever met, even though we had dozens of the same friends.  Heck, I even crashed out on her cousin's couch one night.  We got to talking, and she showed me her blog.  Blog?  What is this?  I started following her, and commenting, and then commenting on other commenters blogs.  I was commenting for about 2 months before I started my own blog.  While Gwen doesn't really post much anymore, my first commenter, Candy, is still rockin' blogworld.

4 – I met my wife, Cora, through blogging.  The first comment I ever left her was on THIS POST, and it translates to: "I want to hide a spy-camera in your house to watch you exercise."  I'm so SMOOOOOTH, no wonder she couldn't resist me.  I flew 2,000 miles to suburban Seattle for our first date.  I stayed at a Comfort Inn.  444 days later, in the breakfast room of that same Comfort Inn, we had our rehearsal dinner.

5 – Growing up, I never really imagined being married.  And I never once thought of having kids.  As I entered my 40's, I had pretty much given up on meeting "The One".  I had even come to terms with with it.  And now, I can't imagine life without my wife and child.  I'm plunging into the unimagined future and can't wait to see what's next.

If you want more random facts, I once did a post with over 100 random facts about myself.  While some of them are out-of-date, you can check it out HERE.  I love this fact:

099 - I dated a girl who had a bird. Mean little fucker. And the bird was no prize either.

Now, the part of the meme where I get to pass it along to 5 other bloggers.  How about we learn a little more about:

1. That Janie Girl
2. Angela's Archives
3. Shana's Place 
4. Candy's daily Dandy
5. The Colie Chronicles