Our Blog: Tag, I'm it...

Melinda had tagged me to get me to tell eight little-known facts about myself, well....

1. I'm number seven of nine kids--eight boys and one girl (my sister is the oldest and moved out when I was only eight yrs old). This made for an interesting first few years of being married to a, um .... girl (previously unknown territory for me!) Also, as one of the masses, so to speak, in my family, I learned to fend for myself--I can cook, clean, sew, iron, pick up after myself, and cage fight. By the way, I'm kidding about the cage fighting (well, mostly...)

2. As far as fears go, I am like Susan in that I am also deathly afraid of the ocean. Especially, of um, well, Sharks. I have a hard time seeing why anyone is willing to swim in the same water with swift, giant, ancient monsters that not only are able to snatch a grown man away into the depths of unknown oblivion to his utter horror, but have been KNOWN to do so!!!! That's just not a risk I'm willing to take--no thanks. I've had people tell me, then, "hey, but you're taking a risk of death every time you step into a car." Well, if the risk of driving were to have even the SLIGHTEST chance of being dragged miles down into the cold dark ocean, only to be torn to little shreds by a senseless monster, then I'd never touch a steering wheel again! 'Nuff said.
By the way, I was going to post a picture of a shark, but in the process of trying to find a not-so-threatening one I was being scared out of my wits!!

3. For some odd reason, unbeknownst to me, people tend to think of me as a very serious, don't-like-to-have-too-much-fun type of person. I admit, I can be serious--when I think I need to be, but man, if you think I'm up-tight and don't like to have fun, you don't know me at all!!! People who know me best know that I can be one of the silliest guys ever! Case-and-point, I'm a pretty good country swing dancer due to my faithful (every week!) attendance to a youth dance somewhere in the valley as a teenager, and my religious attendance to country swing dances and east-coast swing dances as a young adult. Melinda and I can really rip up the dance floor!!! (and we're dying to do it again sometime!) Here's us having a little fun at a ward Halloween party when we were first married. It's us in about 60 years....

4. I double as a mobile DJ! My last "gig" was actually this last February, on my birthday (of all days!) I scored a cool $275 in 2 1/2 hours--cha ching!!! I DJed a Valentine's dance for the Chandler-Gilbert Community College Institute of Religion. By the way, I sort of "inherited" the DJ equipment from my older brother (who was also a mobile DJ)--lucky me!!! (Thanks, Derrel!)

(Pic: Me in my younger years.... :)

5. I never, in my wildest dreams, thought I'd ever become a doctor...ever. It's not like I was opposed to it or anything, it just never even entered my mind that I ever could become a doctor. My dad is an engineer, and there was not a single doctor in my family in any direction on the family tree (that I know of.) The only reason that it ever entered my train of consciousness that I would or could ever become a doctor is that one of my brothers suddenly decided to go to medical school. Then another one did (both at Midwestern). It was only while I was a Junior at BYU that I started making plans on my final destination in school that I overheard another older brother (a neuropsychologist, PhD) say that he'd wished he'd gone "the medical route" to get to where he was. Since I was, at the time, planning on a PhD in Molecular Biology, to do research on proteins and DNA (so cool!!!--by the way, I am not joking this time!...) this caught my attention. He had good reasons for his regret (particularly, same amount of school--with all the post-doctorates involved now-a-days--but higher pay for doctors), and it got me to consider the medical route. The more I thought about it, the better I felt about it--and the Spirit kept me going in that direction. Since then, I have found out for myself that this is exactly what I would have chosen. It combines the two things I love most--science, and people!

6. Speaking of science, I am a fanatic! I LOVE watching Nova (a science show on PBS) and learning everything I possibly can about our world and universe! I'm not big into TV, but I do make an exception for Nova (and Nature, when I can catch it!) I also spend time reading through articles on science web sites like livescience.com, when I can. I guess that's why I kick butt at games like Malarky--mostly because I already know the answer to a lot of the questions!

7. I love learning, but I hate reading (lengthy texts, at least.) This is why I prefer watching shows on science rather than reading long books about it, although I don't mind articles, as mentioned above. This drives my wife crazy because she loves to read. I think I have an aversion to reading long texts because you could say the same thing with so many less words. Maybe it's an efficiency thing. This is why I never read the textbook for school classes--I learn solely from class and the notes. By the way, I never got around to reading those novels assigned in high school english, whoops!

8. Maybe my aversion to books has something to do with the fact that I am a very right-brained person. I LOVE to draw and sculpt--although I have only a little training in both. I play the guitar, but I am dying to learn how to play the piano too! I am also dying to learn how to paint--and to get into photography (along with Melinda). I love Photoshop and video-editing on the computer, I just don't have a lot of time for them!!