Chances are that you, dear reader, who has decided to read my first blog post on my website, somehow know me, probably personally.
But how well do you really know me?
Here are some interesting facts to get you a little more familiar:
I have often pursued the hobby of collecting things. I believe I get this habit from my grandmother. Things I have collected in the past include: quarters, roosters, theater posters, rocks from places I've travelled to, currencies, Yu-Gi-Oh, Lord of the Rings action figures.
My favorite author is John Steinbeck. My favorite movie is Bridge on the River Kwai. My favorite podcast is Dissect. My favorite musician is Bruce Springsteen.
I once put Icy Hot on my testicles because of a dare from my brother.
When I was about 4, I busted my chin going down a water slide on my belly at my grandparents' community pool. A few months later, I busted my chin open again after slipping on the stairs of the exact same slide. The scar, and the slide, remain to this day.
I cried when I watched Where the Wild Things Are in theaters when my whole class went to see it on a field trip.
4th of July 2020, was the first time I was in the USA to celebrate the holiday since 2012.
When I was young, my first dream job was to be a chef. The second was to be a Broadway actor.
I was born during a Green Bay Packers football game in the middle of a snowstorm. I was a huge Packers fan for much of my childhood because of this fact and because my first football card was of a Packer.
I have had several pets of my own. I had a hermit crab named Wave, two hamsters, named Charlie Fuzzykins and Charlie Fuzzykins II (as a replacement), and two chinchillas, named Bilbo and Frodo. Rest in Power.
I am an Eagle Scout. Some of the merit badges I earned include stamp collecting, fingerprinting, theater, and wilderness survival. During my Eagle Scout Board of Review, I was asked what was the toughest merit badge I earned. I replied, "basket weaving." I was not lying.
I once asked for (and received) a bookcase as a birthday present. This was before high school.
I can eat a pint of ice cream in approximately 5 minutes.
I had an uncanny ability to clog the toilet as a young child. Part of this was due to my distrust of public bathrooms, and thus unwillingness to use them and hold it in. Luckily, I've outgrown this.
I minored in Chinese in college. China was the first country I visited without my family, back in 2013. As a child who refused to have anything on my burgers except cheese, this trip began my transformation of trying foods including duck blood, tarantula, cow lung, fermented fish paste, and pig intestines.
I once asked, out loud, during the middle of a Christmas Eve service, what a virgin was.
^Me at the real bridge on the river Kwai