Random Seven

Nearly a week ago, used*to*be*me tagged me with a meme to post seven random things about me. I’ve been racking my brain trying to come up with suitably entertaining randomness that I haven’t covered when I had to come up with Five Weird Habits or Six Weird Things about me. Somebody keeps upping the ante on these lame memes.

Probably about the only reason I fall for these memes is that it gives me a chance to unload some minor thoughts that don’t merit a whole blog entry. It also lets me linkback to older posts to catch people up to date. Here goes:

1. I’ve ridden my bicycle 137 miles so far this year. I know this because I keep a spreadsheet log of all my bike rides. I 2005 I had only managed 231 miles because I had torn my ACL. In 2006 I rode 251 miles after recovering from my zombie knee surgery but before cracking my helmet in September. The spreadsheet from 2004 got destroyed in a hard drive crash before I rode the Seagull Century. Since I did two 50-mile training rides that year, I probably rode at least 500 miles.
2. I once shared an elevator with Jerry Pournelle, noted science fiction writer and computer journalist. It was in 1992 at the World Science Fiction Convention in Orlando. I recognized him from his trademark bolo tie and pencil thin moustache. This is not an entirely random memory since he was co-guest of honor at Balticon this weekend. More about my time at that later.
3. I could probably go a week wearing only Georgia Tech themed apparel. Every time I go to Atlanta I buy one or two items at the bookstore. Currently I own four or five tee shirts, three golf shirts, two dress shirts, three hoodies, one pair of sweatpants, two pairs of socks and a biking jersey.
4. My childhood home got buried in volcanic ash. From 1976 to 1979 I lived on Mactan Circle on Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines. In 1992 Mount Pinatubo erupted and covered the entire base in volcanic ash. My house probably looked like this picture I found on the web. Time magazine ran a picture of my sister’s elementary school with ash up to the top of the doors. You can’t go home again.
5. I know my high school GPA to the third decimal place. At my fifth year high school reunion our class salutatorian got very drunk and told me how much the 0.004 difference in our GPAs destroyed everything he had worked for. Out 25th reunion is next month. I wonder if he will be there.
6. I’ve touched the space shuttle. I did an HVAC design project to replace the air conditioning in the elevator machine room on the cargo bay hoist. During one trip they had a bird on the pad and we could look right into the cockpit windows. I used the have a picture of me standing in front of it wearing a Georgia Tech tee shirt.
7. I own at least four different editions of Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut. I have an uncorrected proof, the leather bound Franklin Press edition, the first trade hardback edition, and a trade paperback reading copy. Iown multiple copies of several other Vonnegut novels as well including two different audiobook versions of Slaughterhouse Five.

I made it to seven, barely. Whew!

BlatantCommentWhoring™: Add your own random fact.