~robcee/ field notes of a pyroentomologist, now 33% snappier!

7 things

Curse you, Beltzner! You’ve memed me. With each one of these I participate in, the less people will believe me when I tell them that I don’t usually go for these things. It’s a vicious cycle.

The Rules for This Particular Meme

• Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post. (see above)
• Share seven facts about yourself in the post. (see below)
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs. (see below)
• Let them know they’ve been tagged. (you’ll just have to trust me)

Se7en Thing5

1. I have worked many different jobs in my lifetime. I have worked in retail selling clothes, stereos and parts for cars. I have worked on construction sites. I have been the guy with the leaf blower who gets your ball out of the windmill at the miniature golf course. Perhaps most-interestingly, I have dressed up as a giant stick of balogna (or “baloney” as some prefer to spell it) and made appearances at grocery stores.
2. I speak French. For the romance.
3. I am self-taught on the guitar and keyboard and can mash my way through most songs by ear. I dabble in recording music and have recorded bands with a laptop and some microphones. The first musical instrument I learned to play was the banjo. My parents thought it would be funny to show me to their friends playing dueling banjos “Deliverance-style” when I was 4 or 5 years old. I never forgave them.
4. Which brings me to cars. When I was 16 I got my driver’s license and proceeded to crash my father’s then-new 1987 Audi 4000S Quattro. I was attempting a timed-run from the mini-putt course (see #1) and crashed going around a turn at several times the posted speed limit. I maintain the car’s tires were under-inflated. The car was totalled. Later that year, I spun out on a patch of ice into a parked car in my mother’s Chevrolet Acadian (badged “Chevette” in the US and English-speaking Canada). It was not totalled, but the Toyota was. Still later, driving the same car, I was struck by a drunk elderly gentleman who drove through a stop-sign and broad-sided me. My first year of driving included 3 accidents. The Audi didn’t survive, but the Chevette is probably still on the road to this day. After that year, I got a 1978 BMW320i which I restored from the junk-heap. I stopped having accidents when I got my own car. (parents: there’s a lesson there)
5. My early lessons driving different vehicles in less than optimal conditions prepared me well for my task as a balloon chase driver. I have an uncle who flies hot-air balloons and often needs ground-crew to help inflate, deflate and chase after them in large pickup trucks in various exciting, often off-road conditions. I did this several times in my late-teens and early twenties including when he was sponsored by Shell Oil. We got special jump-suits for those outings which I think came from their line of pit-crew overalls. There’s a picture of me in the Halifax Herald from the early nineties with my uncle and the balloon in the Halifax Commons. His preferred metro launch site.
6. I have sailed to the Grenadine islands, specifically, Bequia just south of St. Vincent to deliver a boat for the winter chartering season. We departed from Shediac, New Brunswick, sailed on a 54′ Chinese-built sloop through the Strait of Canso at Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia and then into the deep Atlantic. First port of call was Bermuda after 10 days of not seeing land. It rained the entire time and we were in heavy waves. After Bermuda, the weather improved considerably. I got to experience “dead calm”, rapid oncoming storms, ball lightning and hearing Philipino and Greek sailors calling each other names over the radio. We had guns on-board “for pirates”. Grimmest moment: learning that we were in the Bermuda Triangle and had been for two days. I did not get seasick. Total distance: >4000kms.
7. I have been robbed at gun point while working in a pharmacy. The thief had backup in the form of another guy with a kitchen knife. No-one got hurt.

Seven People
Now the truly distasteful part. I have to name 7 people to do this same thing! Don’t be scared. If people ask why, you can tell them, The Internet Made Me Do It. Like Beltzner. And me.

1. Deb Richardson – you have been called. You blog all the time so this should be a piece of cake for you.
2. Kev Needham – you don’t blog enough. I bet you have some funny stories hidden away in there. Get ‘em out!
3. Chris Cooper – I know you like cheese, but there’s more to this story than meets the brie.
4. Neil Lee – Are those G4 and G5 builds really optimized? I just met you and not even in person! Give it up.
5. Mike Hoye – I don’t really know you at all. But you’re funny and you have a blog so I think you’ll be OK with this. I hope. Don’t hate me.
6. Paul Kim Johnath Nightingale – Paul’s having blog problems, so I’m going to double up on you.
7. Brad Sucks – I only met you, like, once, but I feel like I’ve known you all my life! You might think you’re “too cool for memes” and maybe you are, but you can’t refuse! Also, more puppy pics.

I’m sorry.

you’re totally not sorry.

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Glad you got an early education on the banjo.