OK, another pesky meme tagging, this time my buddy Kevin has tagged me to name 5 things about myself that others probably don’t know. Here they are in no particular order:
- I lived in Caracas Venezuela for 6 years. I moved there speaking no Spanish in order to force myself to learn it quickly, which I did. The best method to learn Spanish while there? Watching cartoons on TV in Spanish. Surprisingly this worked very well due to the simple language used in most cartoons.
- I am a professional geophysicist by accident. You got that right, my educational background is in what was then called Computer Science. I started working in computer rooms for oil companies and picked up geophysical principles by watching their computer runs to the point that I was helping the staff geophysicists out so after 5 years I was promoted to a practicing geophysicist. Honest.
- The high school I attended in Pasadena, Texas had one of the first computer curriculums in the country. I attended that course for 3 hours per day for my last two years in high school and my final project was an inventory program for a men’s clothing store. It was written in COBOL and was still used by the store 5 years after I left high school.
- I began using WIndows CE devices the day they were released (the old Handheld PC). I began writing about mobile technology at that time and was given an autographed copy of the first ever Microsoft Press book on Windows CE for those efforts.
- I once had to attend a one day meeting in Muscat, Oman that materialized at the last minute. I fflew for 23 hours from Houston to Oman and arrived at my hotel at 3 am. I attended the meeting all day, went directly from the meeting to my flight out at 7 pm for the 23 hour return trip. I was so exhausted that when I changed airports in London I left my briefcase with my laptop inside at the security X-ray carousel. I searched the entire airport before hearing my name paged in the airport to return to the security checkpoint, where I was given my briefcase with all contents intact. Thank goodness this was pre-911.
I am not going to tag anyone else for this meme because the holidays have me too tired. :)
{"source":"https:\/\/gigaom.com\/2006\/12\/22\/meme_time_for_j\/wijax\/49e8740702c6da9341d50357217fb629","varname":"wijax_a9d471107db3ef7a107868ee75eac075","title_element":"header","title_class":"widget-title","title_before":"%3Cheader%20class%3D%22widget-title%22%3E","title_after":"%3C%2Fheader%3E"}