25 (not so) Random Things

(I have been repeatedly tagged for this "25 Random Things" note/blog/whatever over on Facebook, so I thought I would cross-post the result here.)

First let me say that 25 is a pretty big number of things, so this will *not* be 25 things you never knew about me. Some of the items are directly stolen from my earlier writings. You'll get over it. Second, there is nothing at all "random" about the selection of these things; if they were random the list would likely be filled with really insignificant and uninteresting stuff. No, I mean even more than it already is.

1. I grew-up in inner-city Detroit. My parents bought the house I grew-up around 1960 for $16,500. Due to the fine state into which our neighborhood devolved, the house sold for a whopping $6000 in 1983. The neighborhood has continued downhill from there. When I think of this, I think of the Steve Martin line from The Jerk: "I was born a poor black child." People just look at me strangely when I quote it now.
2. I was a strange kid. I used to thing about things like:

   • What was beyond the edge of the universe: If the universe was infinite, and God created the universe, I concluded it must still be rolling out from the point of creation.
   • When I found out Santa Claus was not real, I started to question the existence of God. I worked on this for years and then finally concluded I was not smart enough to figure this out. I remain agnostic to this day.
   • Whether absolute zero was the opposite of infinite mass (like if you move mass at the speed of light): Think about it; it actually make a bit of strange sense.
     
3. Mom was an alcoholic for all the time I can remember when I was growing up in Detroit. Even hospitalization for cirrhosis of the liver did not stop her from drinking. For some reason, after I no longer lived at home, she dried out and stayed that way for the rest of her life. I am proud that she was able to get passed it.
   
4. I went to my first car race when I was about 3. My father, uncles and some others built a Late Model that we raced every Saturday at Flat Rock, MI (a 1/4 mile paved oval) and Sunday at Toledo, OH (a ~1/2 mile paved oval). A few of the guys we raced against went on to have pretty decent NASCAR and other professional careers: Mark Martin, Alan Kulwicki, Dick Trickle (don't ask me why he didn't decide to go with "Rich" or "Richard" or why his parents ever went there in the first place), and some others.
   
5. I was a percussionist in high school. Okay, not a particularly good one, but it was fun. And I met some cute girls in the band.
   
6. I went to a mostly black high school where attendance was about the only thing required for a B grade. While there I dated mostly black girls because most of the girls were black. My parents were less than appreciative of my choices for female accompaniment.
   
7. I dated an 18 year-old girl when I was 15. In the end I broke it off because she was too immature for me. No, really! (This, by the way, is the same girl mentioned in #12 below.)
   
8. There about 1000 students in each class at that high school. In mine only 288 graduated. Of those very few went to college. I went to a small liberal arts college in Michigan (Albion) because I wasn't sure I had the background/prerequisites to survive in in a large school like the University of Michigan.
   
9. As an undergrad I majored in Computational Math and Psychology because I was interested in understanding how people think, being able to model it and then to program it into a computer (i.e., AI). From these efforts I have reached two unfortunate conclusions (a) that we have no fucking idea how people think, and (b) a surprising number of people don't seem to think much at all.
10. You know that obsessive/compulsive detective, "Monk?" I have some of that in me. Sometimes things have to be just so. Here are some examples:
    10.a. We have a black cat and a formerly white cat. (The formerly white cat is now still pretty light, but she only has patches of white.) I give them their breakfast in some old bowls that come in black and white. I always give the white bowl to the black cat and the black bowl to the light colored cat. It doesn't look right otherwise.
    10.b. I usually cannot walk past a crooked picture without straightening it.
    10.c. I line up all the shampoo and conditioner bottles in the shower. I don't think about it, I just do it.
    10.d. When I get locked on a problem, I just can't let it go until I have it sorted out. (Or perhaps this is an aspect of #11.)
11. And on top of that I am also somewhat anal-retentive. How can you identify the anal? Ask them, "Does anal-retentive have a dash?" They should respond, "No, it has a hyphen."
12. I have a really bad memory. I once dated a girl for 3 months without knowing her name. When I first forgot it, I could not bring myself to ask. And then after a month, well, you simply cannot ask without risking bodily injury. Luckily she was an only child. When I called her house (she lived with her parents), if her mother answered the phone I would ask, "Can I speak to your daughter, please?" Nope, neither her nor her mother never caught on. Eventually I found it written somewhere. (Epilogue: I currently have no idea what her name was.)
    
13. I had a therapist once ask me if I always thought I was right. I responded: "Well, of course! If I thought I was wrong, I would change what I thought." Duh! (She just laughed.)
14. Racing is the only thing I have consistently wanted to do since I was 6. (I did not discover girls until I was 8.)
    
15. I read very slowly because I subvocalize. I read technical manuals and novels at about the same speed. I did not develop an appreciation for reading until the 11th grade and Mr. Moldovan. I used one 78-page book for most of my book reports in 6th, 7th and 8th grade.
16. I test poorly. Always have; probably always will. If you tell me "there will be a test," my body instantly goes in to its "fight or flight" mode. If you do this as a joke, be careful because I might hit you.
17. My first real job (as in post undergrad) was with Lockheed in Sunnyvale, CA. I went to work for them because it got me the hell out of Detroit and because they agreed to pay for my MSCS at Stanford. The catch was that I had to work full-time while doing my graduate work, so I only averaged about 3 hours of sleep a night. There is no way I could do that now.
    
18. I am very auditory. Various, often small, noises drive me crazy: any sound in the house or car that doesn't belong there, people that chew with their mouths open or smack their gum, people that idly click their pall point pens or wrap them on the table, etc. Yes, I would kill many people if not for my exceptional power self-control. :)
    
19. My wife and I have mostly rebuilt a cabin at 11,600 in Summit County. We did most of this ourselves. I love how it turned out. I do not recommend doing this with a loved one.
    
20. When my feline buddy of 19 years, Terra, passed away a few years ago, we decided to provide a foster home for kittens without mommy cats and too young to be adopted out by the humane society. (You can see some pictures in my profile.) It was fun. We laughed, we cried, we bled. (Those little critters had sharp claws which proved useful for climbing flesh as well as fabric.)
    
21. As a result of fostering 10 kittens, we now have 2 that have taken up permanent residence: Storm and Pantera. (You can see pictures of them in my profile as well.)
22. Storm's name was chosen because she is a force of nature and because she reminded me of the X-Men character of the same name.
23. Pantera's name was chosen as it is the Italian feminine noun for Panther -- she reminded me of a black panther. And a little for the car. But not at all for the band.
    
24. I have had headaches since I was in my early 20's. I have tried medicines, biofeedback, exercise, yoga, accupuncture, chriopractic, guided relaxation, diet changes and I don't know what all. Headaches suck.
25. I have had at least some gray hair since I was 18. I am (so far at least) unwilling to dye it. I hate hair color for men commercials.