K. Scott Allen, Jayson Knight, and Keyvan Nayyeri all tagged me, so despite my general antipathy towards these viral questionnaire memes (they remind me of that silly slambook fad in grade school), this one is interesting enough for me to respond.

Besides, since my main machine is still fried until Dell manages to ship me my new video card, I’ve got nothing better to do.

1. In Florida, I helped build a casino.
Yellow Hotwheel CarWhen I was around eight or nine years old, I was part of a toy car club. We had meetings to discuss the relative merits of Matchbox vs Hotwheels and what qualities to look for in purchasing a collectible car. We also put on various car shows for the neighborhood kids.

The club leader was a much older kid who decided to raise funds by building a casino. He put us all to work building a shed in his yard and we stocked it with those working toy slot machines, a blackjack table, a roulette wheel etc…

With that in place, we rounded up all the neighborhood kids and had them play the games with real money. I think the club president was using all of us to make himself some extra cash (not to mention doing his chores by building a tool shed/casino) because I recall hefty membership fees to join the club and he pretty much wouldn’t let me cash out my winnings at the casino, egging me on to continue playing until I lost everything.

2. I was part of a breakdancing crew in Spain.
Man performing a one handed handstand while grabbing his foot with the other hand. Who wasn’t part of a breakdancing crew back in the mid-80s? Me and my friends used to battle against the local Spanish kids.

For those who are unfamiliar with the breakdancing vernacular, battling was the act of dancing in a manner so as to impress your buddies and onlookers, while insulting your opponent with such clever actions as pretending to eat an opponent’s head and throwing the excreted result back at him.

My specialty was the head spin.

3. When I was a baby, I nearly drowned in a river in Korea.
River All I remember was climbing onto an inflatable raft. I must’ve been around three or four. The next thing I know, the sucker flipped and I was drifting towards the bottom. As I was sinking, I remember looking up and seeing my uncle swimming towards me and pulling me up. Apparently I was deathly afraid of water for years afterwards. I’m fine now thank you.

4. I embarrassed myself on television in Guam.
A ship on the open seas near an island. It is the HMS Beagle. During Middle School, I was part of the Academic Challenge Bowl team for my school. We would go on local public access television to play a Jeopardy like game against the other middle schools.

In my first game, I got a little buzzer happy and buzzed right in the middle of the question. What I heard was something like this:

Charles Darwin formulated his theory of evolution during a trip to…

I buzzed in and blurted out “Galapagos Islands!” Sorry, no. The moderator continued,

…the Galapagos Islands. What was the name of his ship?

Damn!

5. In High School, I struggled with math and considered going to art school.
A self portrait of Van Gogh I have a bit of a reputation among my friends for being a bit of a math geek. However, due to the fine quality of the educational institutions in Guam, I was actually a year behind my college-bound peers in math when I moved to Alaska.

English was my better subject during highschool. While I struggled with math, I aced both the AP English and AP Literature exams (earning me bookoo college credit).

In fact, during this time, I was seriously considering going to an art institute. What convinced me otherwise was the thought that I would miss the fun of the traditional college experience (Old School anyone?) if I went to a more vocational school. Yeah, that was some seriously deep reasoning.

Tag, You’re It

Ok, so in keeping with this meme, I must now tag five people (a few of whom are the least likely to reply to this) who are then honor bound to reply with their own five things nobody knows or they will lose an eye, or something like that.