7 Things About Me

Sunday, January 11, 2009

I’ve been tagged by my lovely wife to take part in this meme, and apparently my initial attempt was insufficient. I’m not sure there are actually seven things about me, but let’s find out, shall we?

Once upon a time, I was a world record holding arcade video game player. I set records on several machines, but only two of them stood long enough to make it to the canonical Twin Galaxies Official Record Book:

Journey (I’m still #3) and Zaxxon (I’m #11).

Although more people have beaten it, I’m prouder of the Zaxxon record.

I could theoretically play the Journey game as long as I could stay awake, the only reason my score is so much lower than the two above me is that I’d been awake 16 hours already when I started my attempt. When I quit, I had to sacrifice over 100 extra lives.

Zaxxon, on the other hand, was (still is) a very tough game. It awards a maximum of two extra lives and the average game is over in minutes. My record took just over one hour to set. The game’s display would only show six figures of the score, so moments from the end of my record game I became the first person to ever “roll” the score. I’ve got pictures from the event around here somewhere, and will post them next time I run across them.

For those that have seen King of Kong, and I recommend it to anyone that hasn’t, I can say that the two main gamers pretty much sum up the two types of people that were in competitive gaming back in the day, too. I am happy to say I was of the non-Billy Mitchell variety.
I cry at movies, but not during sad parts. I’ve never been able to succinctly state what does make me cry, though. Here’s a few of them, maybe someone can tell me how best to sum them up:

The Iron Giant: The giant’s “I’m Superman” at the climactic moment so moved me that I actually teared up talking about it the next day with my sons. There’s even a little catch in my throat right now, writing about it.

Mulan: The emperor thanking Mulan and then bowing down to her.

Crossroads (1986): (They’re not all animation :-)) Eugene’s electric classical finale to the “cutting heads” guitar duel.

Old Yeller: Here’s where I have to make a distinction. I don’t cry because Old Yeller dies, I cry because Travis steps up to put Yeller down himself.

Free bonus points to anyone that gives me a description that encompasses all four triggers.

Update: The bonus points have been awarded to the lovely @frostinglickr. She informs me that I am a tribute crier. I find no references to this in the google, but it’s an apt description. The core emotion I’m feeling in these instances, I now realize, is pride in the characters on the screen.
I taught myself to program in BASIC on a PET computer in 1981, have owned my own computer(s) since 1982, and almost obsessively seek out new languages and operating systems to learn. In spite of this, I did not have or even seek a job in IT until 1997, when I quit my job as a FedEx courier and took a 45% pay cut to start as an evening computer operator at the absolute bottom pay rate.
I’m in the middle of changing careers yet again, though not as drastically. I’d been working as Senior Unix Systems Administrator for a department in charge of subsidiaries. Basically it was a small IT department that operated independently of the larger IT department of the core company.

The company I work for merged with a much larger company a couple years ago. As part of the transition I was offered the choice of remaining in systems administration and reporting to a new management chain or switching to Java web development and staying with my current supervisor. Although I’d always developed for my own purposes as a sysadmin, and could have continued to, I decided to take the larger leap into full time development. It’s been a challenge, and will continue to be, but that’s what growth’s about.
I love blues music and blues festivals, yet haven’t respectively bought or attended any in years.
Every few years I decide I’m going to learn how to draw. The pinnacle of my artistic achievement thus far is my avatar. Since having carpal tunnel surgery in my dominant hand 14 months ago, I’m not sure if I’ll ever try again, but I wouldn’t count it out.
I once had my nose broken, and it took me about thirty years to find out. During a routine first exam by a new doctor, he casually mentioned “I see you’ve had your nose broken”. This was news to me. One call to my parents, though, and they remembered the likely event right away. When I was ten or so, I was walking up to my dad from behind while he started a lawnmower. Anyone that’s seen the Three Stooges can imagine what happened without my drawing a diagram.

So there it is. Turns out there were at least seven things about me. How about that?

This is the point at which I’m supposed to tag seven people, but I think I’ll just suggest that you, if you like, sit down and try to write one of these about yourself. You don’t even have to put it on the Internet. Just write it down or type it out and know that you’ve done a little bit of thinking about yourself. If you find you’d like to share it, then go ahead.