Title: 25 Things Part 2, or The Resurrected Blogging Husband

Between two part-time jobs, full-time school, searching for a full-time job, and trying to spend time with Kristi and the Burrito, posting on "The Peasant" ends up as far back as my burners go.  

However, a few days I wandered into a friend's blog, unaware of a vicious tagging snare she had lain. (Yes, the correct word is lain.  Ask an english major).  "All of you who read this blog and haven't commented in the last (I don't remember how long) are tagged."  I don't think I've ever commented on Talyn and Kevin's blog. Thus, by my friend's trap and at my wife's behest, I give you twenty five random things that you probably don't know about me. (They're pretty random). 

1. When I was ten or so I learned to ride a unicycle that was gathering dust in our garage simply because it was there and I thought it wouldn't be too tough to learn.  It took about two weeks to get the hang of it.  My record for longest time on the unicycle was fifteen minutes.

2.  I learned to juggle the same way.  I woke up one summer morning with the thought that I was going to learn how to juggle that day.  Two weeks later and a number of smacks in the face from the pool balls I used for practice, I was pretty good at juggling three of anything.  Interestingly enough, I later got a part in a play based solely on my ability to ride a unicycle and juggle.  

3. I never ate a grape until my freshman year of college.  After nine grapes, I turned to my running buddy and told her "I know this will sound stupid, but these taste an awful lot like raisins." 

4. I have never seen it, but either there really is a long white hair that grows straight out of my forehead or Kristi is having a great time making me believe that there is.  

5. I have eaten lizard, and it's pretty tasty.  I found out later it was illegal.  Oops.  

6. If $10,000 fell like manna from the sky and I could spend it on anything I wanted, the temptation to blow it all on electronics (cameras, computers, Apple stuff, Bose speakers, etc). would be immense.  Buying the stuff would be almost as fun as sharing the joy of having it with my brother Ben.  

7.  As soon as I get the chance, I want to spend more of my time outdoors skiing, hiking, canoeing, camping, mountain biking, rock climbing, running, and being outside.  

8. I always want to watch a movie's special features after watching the movie.  Kristi always wants to go to sleep.  

9. During a boring class in High School, I suddenly wondered how far back into my mouth I could put my tongue. "Let's see: teeth, hard palette, alveolar ridge, soft palette, uvula, and... ummm, what is that?"   I still don't know what it's called, but I can put my tongue above my soft palette into the whatever-it-is that's up there.  

10.  In one area of Costa Rica, I showed the above trick to a group of five or six kids.  In a few weeks, they had told their friends, who had told THEIR friends, and I was being asked in opposite parts of the town if I was the white missionary who could swallow his tongue.  The trick was requested for months, and was always received by squeals of delight.  "Did you see that Gringo?"    "Where'd his tongue GO?"  

11. I have the lumpiest head of anyone I know.  

12. I fantasize about being a bmx biker in the X-games.  

13. I also fantasize about learning all the root languages that feed into modern English (German, Norman, Celtic, Latin, Greek, Norwegian, and some others) and then learning all of the roots to THOSE languages.  Plus, I'd like to study how the mythology of each culture is preserved through language and most people don't even realize it.  (Did you know the word "Thursday" comes from "Thor's Day"?  The Day of Thunder.  Think about that next time the day before Friday is dragging on.)

14. I love Black Pepper Kettle Chips.  Every time I buy them for a movie night in bed, I tell myself I'll only eat half of the bag.  Somehow, the chips are always gone when the movie is over. 

15. I am of the opinion that there are few things more relaxing than falling asleep with a downpour of rain beating on a tin roof.  

16. This is copied from my sister in law, but I love traveling.  I love everything about it, driving, flying, packing, walking, sight-seeing, new smells, new surroundings, hotels, everything.  

17. Certain marketing tactics really really irk me, and I can't figure out why.  Like that Brent Brown guy who has been bending over backwards for the last three kajillion years to keep your business in Utah Valley.  Can he not think of some different ad campaign?  Another thing that fits into this category is brands or products that seem like they were named by incompetent third graders.  EZ-Cheez. Quik Stop. KOA Kampground. Shur Saving.  Bah!  

18. I am conversely impressed with people who can make up words that make sense even though you've never heard them before.  For example, a friend's gmail status said she was drowning in homework.  I told her to tread water.  Her response was "::::gurble::::".  (Just saying gurble makes me laugh). The Jabberwocky is chock full of other such great words, like vorpal, frabjous, brillig, and frumious.  

19. I'll often put black dress socks on over my white socks instead of just changing my socks.  It always seems like it'll be more work to do it the other way, but it's a lie. 

20. At the end of a rehearsal for some play when I was 14, I decided to jump off the stage instead of taking the stairs down.  Something caught my foot on my way down and I landed forehead first on the cement floor of the auditorium.  The bruising from the two-inch goose egg protruding from my cranium turned my entire face green.  (I swear I am not making this up).  I had to have make-up applied from my chin to my forehead to keep me from looking like I had facial gangrene.

21. I fainted once during a choir concert.  In a chapel.  Which happened to be in a hospital.  Oh, and the concert was being broadcast to the whole hospital.  After I woke up, I was taken to a room off the side of the chapel and the choir kept singing.  Over the next few minutes, doctors kept coming into the room to make sure that I was ok and lying down and sucking on something sugary and that my shirt was off and that I had an IV put in and that my heart hadn't stopped.  The singers could only see doctor after doctor ("I was watching the concert when I saw someone faint, and thought there couldn't POSSIBLY be another doctor watching!") hustling to the side room, one of which wheeled in a crib-sized piece of medical machinery (an EKG machine).  The choir told me later they were sure I was dying.  In the midst of my shirtless sugar sucking IV pandemonium, I managed to count twenty-three doctors in the room.  Twenty-three! Let that be a lesson to you all.  Never faint in a hospital.  

22. Two semesters ago I had completed all but one of my general education requirements and I was more than 50% done with six different minors: Music, Chinese, Political Science, Spanish, Economics, Asian Studies, and Business.

23. During my earlier childhood, I always felt like my brother was picking on me.  See the picture below where my brother is gloating over my persecution.  

24. I haven't eaten ice cream for months.  

25. Twice in my two years in Costa Rica, my eyes swelled to the point that friends didn't recognize me.  My face stayed swollen until I got an antihistamine injection.  Nobody ever figured out what I was allergic to.  

And there you have it.