Feb 16

100 or So Things

Tag: Uncategorized — Steve @ 11:14 am

  1. I am a lefty, though my dad tried to make me be right-handed when I was young.
  2. I am happily married.
  3. Triple shot venti cappuccino, dry, if you must know.
  4. I grew up on a farm in central Illinois.
  5. I felt sorry for the city kids who had to lock their doors at night.
  6. After high school I hitch-hiked from Illinois to Alaska and back. Twice.
  7. I graduated in the top two-thirds of my high school class.
  8. Two places I wanted to see after high school were Florida and Colorado.
  9. I enlisted in the Air Force to travel and get an education.
  10. My first assignment was Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida.
  11. After a few years in Florida, I was accepted to the US Air Force Academy, Colorado.
  12. I attended the AF Academy Prep School.
  13. If I didn’t attend the AF Academy Prep School, I wouldn’t have graduated from the Academy.
  14. My best friend at the Prep School is still my best friend today.
  15. I retired from the AF after twenty-four years of service.
  16. My lovely wife is still a Reservist.
  17. She outranked me.
  18. I was stationed in eastern Turkey, at a lovely garden spot called Diyarbakir.
  19. The village outside the base was called Yolboyu, which means “wide spot in the road.”
  20. I am an Old-Earth (Progressive) Creationist, but the age of the earth is not a salvation issue.
  21. Yes, I am a Christian.
  22. My favorite authors are Charles Dickens and Patrick O’Brian.
  23. Favorite books: A Tale of Two Cities, Lord of the Rings, and the Aubrey-Maturin series.
  24. I was the eleventh of twelve kids.
  25. There were eight boys and four girls.
  26. Two of my sisters have died of cancer.
  27. I know things, but I can’t tell you. Otherwise I’d have to kill you.
  28. I love fly fishing, but I’m not particularly good at it.
  29. My favorite movie is Casablanca.
  30. Political correctness is killing our society.
  31. People need to be responsible for their actions.
  32. I like single malt scotch.
  33. I’ve been to every state in the union except South Carolina.
  34. I have no burning desire to go to South Carolina.
  35. When I was about six, I nearly severed the tip of my left middle finger doing something stupid.
  36. The docs sewed it back on.
  37. I still have the scar.
  38. I nearly sliced off my left big toe while riding a bike barefoot.
  39. I’ve been in two car accidents in which the cars were totaled.
  40. Neither was my fault.
  41. I still have those scars, too.
  42. My first paying job was detasseling corn.
  43. I also walked beans.
  44. My favorite jobs were delivering pizza and flying satellites.
  45. But not at the same time.
  46. I was a Milstar Flight Commander, responsible for flying a military communications satellite.
  47. I delivered pizza in high school.
  48. I started as a lowly pizza maker.
  49. Then I delivered pizza.
  50. Then I was the restaurant manager.
  51. It took several years.
  52. We were kicked out of a church for professing belief in an old earth view of Creation.
  53. I’ll take small churches over mega-churches any day.
  54. My favorite vacation was a twelve-day trip to Israel.
  55. I am writing a novel.
  56. I don’t know if I will ever finish it.
  57. “Man-induced global warming” is one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated.
  58. Favorite scripture personality (other than Christ): Peter. He’s so me. Or I’m so him.
  59. What I’m listening to right now: Nietzsche’s Way, by Robyn Hitchcock.
  60. Friedrich Nietzsche was an idiot.
  61. Coolest internet tool: Pandora .
  62. My favorite Christmas hymn is O Holy Night. I have four different versions on my iPod.
  63. I’ve eaten sliced goat’s brains.
  64. It looked like cauliflower, but tasted like chalk.
  65. I weigh a little over 16 stone, or 1023 Newtons, or 0.596 slinch. Look it up.
  66. A mickey is the smallest visible unit of cursor motion your mouse can produce on a computer screen.
  67. When comparing your milk to some other liquid, just remember that five degrees Quevenne equal one degree Twaddle. No kidding.
  68. After I retired from the Air Force I grew mutton-chop sideburns.
  69. It looked pretty horrible.
  70. My blood type is A+.
  71. It’s about the only A+ I ever got.
  72. Not really, but pretty close.
  73. I am a voracious reader.
  74. I hate math.
  75. I taught my wife how to balance a checkbook.
  76. Everyone should have savings. Put away a little bit each paycheck.
  77. Live on 80% of your income.
  78. Debt is evil.
  79. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and unto God that which is His.
  80. My brother was bitten by a rabid ground squirrel when we were kids.
  81. I hated the fact that my teachers knew all my older brothers and sisters.
  82. I’m smart, but lazy.
  83. Christians should want to live in glass houses.
  84. Figuratively speaking.
  85. I love teaching because it forces me to learn.
  86. One of my favorite websites is the Astronomy Picture of the Day .
  87. There is plenty of room and resources on Earth for everyone.
  88. Malthus was wrong.
  89. So was Rachel Carson .
  90. My current favorite TV show is Dirty Jobs .
  91. Kirk or Picard? Kirk, of course.
  92. My favorite song is Jimmy Buffett’s A Pirate Looks at Forty .
  93. The first live rock concert I attended was Jethro Tull, when they played in Peoria, Illinois. That was a few years ago.
  94. The last live concert I attended was As I Lay Dying , on their headlining tour in November. My nephew Nick is in the band.
  95. Or was it Trans-Siberian Orchestra?
  96. The Trans-Siberian Orchestra has nothing to do with Siberia.
  97. Imagine my surprise.
  98. The motto of the Ledger Sentinel is “the local NEWS source in Oswego, Montgomery and Boulder Hill for more than half a century.”
  99. Are we there yet?
  100. I love to drive cross country.
  101. It’s hard to eat healthy when you drive cross country.
  102. The second Dutchman to fly on the space shuttle was Wubbo Ockels.
  103. My wife hates it that I know that.
  104. Because I forget to pick up the milk.
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13 Responses to “100 or So Things”

  1. Karen Joy says:
    May 23rd, 2007 at 15:03 pm

    I can’t believe I’ve never read this before now! How could I have missed it?
    I’m A+ blood type, too. And love both Dirty Jobs and O Holy Night. And driving cross-country. I went to Alaska the summer after my first year of college, but I didn’t hitchhike. I have the same view as you on debt, teaching, and small churches.
    And, I think that anyone who has flown across the US and looked out the window at the vast expanse of nothingness, punctuated by infrequent towns and even more infrequent cities would come to the conclusion you’ve come to in #87.
    And I liked your mutton chops!! :D

  2. The Responsible Puppet says:
    June 11th, 2007 at 08:57 am

    [...] blatantly stolen from Steve - every blogger should do [...]

  3. Ambrosia de Milano says:
    July 30th, 2007 at 21:56 pm

    How was Malthus wrong, and why is Nietzshe an idiot? And how can you possibly prefer A Tale of Two Cities over Bleak House or Nicholas Nickleby?

    Ambrosia

  4. Christian Beyer says:
    July 31st, 2007 at 09:37 am

    What restaurant? How long? I spent 20 years doing that gig. Of these four, which one? Glenlivet, MacCallan, Glenfiddich or Laphroig?

  5. Steve says:
    July 31st, 2007 at 10:19 am

    Item 50? Mr Kelly’s Pizza. It was a mom and pop pizza joint in a college town in central Illinois.

    Scotch? I like peaty, smokey varieties, such as Highland Park, Laphroig, or Lagavulin.

  6. gordon says:
    October 2nd, 2007 at 14:00 pm

    yeah, your right about the age of the earth.
    it isnt an issue, (but interesting) but salvation is and where I am going to spend a very loooong time.
    Im an army man, Corporal. Armoured light cav, and Field medic
    Yesuha found me lost while serving king and country
    Im never been the same since. cheers

  7. Kathy says:
    October 17th, 2007 at 23:11 pm

    They say every person has a double. You are my husband’s double. You and he are eerily similar. Are you sure you are not my husband? But wait - he doesn’t know about Wubbo Ockels. I’m glad. :)

  8. Steve says:
    October 18th, 2007 at 08:17 am

    Sorry, hon, my secret’s out. I’ve been leading a double life as a blogger. (Kidding!)

  9. Darryl Francis Lefko says:
    December 3rd, 2007 at 00:58 am

    I enjoyed reading your interests and have a question for you. You seem quite knowledgable and a traveled person. What are your thoughts about the Holy Grail? Additionally, the story of Adam and Eve… Are you allowed to consider the possibility a society was around before Adam and Eve or that the creation story was about the fall of man due to the notion humans were transformed into mortal, earthly beings?

  10. Steve says:
    December 3rd, 2007 at 09:39 am

    Darryl,
    The Holy Grail? A mildly interesting Arthurian legend.

    A society before Adam and Eve? I am ‘allowed’ to consider many things… Here’s my bottom line - I am a Christian and I fully believe in the Genesis account of creation, I hold to an old earth creation view (meaning the earth was created ~6 billion years ago. At the proper time - probably somewhere between 6-15,000 years ago - God created Adam and Eve in the garden. I see no physical, written, or theological evidence for any society before Eden. There were certainly other species, including non-human hominids, but I see no evidence of such a prior society.

    The six days of creation - and here I will take flack from young earth creationists - are most likely allegorical, but it doesn’t seem credible to make the creation of man and his fall into sin an allegory for his transmogrification from alien into human.

  11. Christian Beyer says:
    January 7th, 2008 at 16:13 pm

    Hey what’s with your avatar? It’s hard to tell from the size of it but it looks like a ship of the line, maybe a two decker. Tell me about it.

  12. Steve says:
    January 7th, 2008 at 16:39 pm

    Christian,
    It’s from a Geoff Hunt lithograph of HMS Temeraire, a 98-gun man-of-war that fought at Trafalgar and elsewhere. I’ve an interest in naval warfare in the age of sail, and am writing the great unfinished novel set in that era.

  13. Christian Beyer says:
    January 7th, 2008 at 17:48 pm

    Really, a second rate. That’s very cool. Just about everything I know about warfare during the age of sail I learned from the books of Alexander Kent as I followed Richard Bolitho from midshipmen to admiral. I’ve tried to read some of the other series out there but none have captivated my imagination like Kent(O’Brien is too deep for me and Forrester too flowery). Instead I wait impatiently on Bernard Cornwell and Jeff Shaara. Perhaps your novel will take me back to sea. Can you tell me more about it?

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