Greenman's Blog

Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

1. I have a BS in Mathematics. It took me 17 years from start to finish. I’m not the record holder in my family — my maternal grandmother took 30 years.
2. My spacial IQ is very, very high. This does not translate into grace, however.
3. I love puzzles of all sorts — the harder the better. Jigsaw, logic, wooden, even metal blacksmith puzzles. Susan once looked to find me the hardest (“ultra hard!”) metal puzzle she could find and gave it to me. I solved in 15 minutes (she wasn’t happy about that!)
4. I am extremely good at Tetris. I suck at a lot of other reaction-type games, tho.
5. I am a very good swimmer. I had a pool growing up; I was on swim team every summer until high school; I taught advanced swimming to 4th and 5th graders during my junior and senior years in high school. The only place where I am truly graceful is in water.
6. I used to ride my bike to school every day I could. When I was in high school, I would do the trip to/from the school in an average of 11 minutes (best time was 9 minutes.) Driving took 15 minutes. Do the math.
7. I have celiac disease — I can’t eat anything containing gluten, like bread, regular pasta, pizza. I’ve written up some info here.
8. I got on my career path not from wanting to be a programmer, but rather from finding out that I could be paid to be a programmer…
9. I chose to get my degree in mathematics instead of computer science for a few reasons, the main one of which is that I felt I could learn more from mathematics. (I was easily solving college senior level CS problems in my freshman year.)
10. I ended up taking some of my math courses out of sequence. Specifically, modern algebra (403, 404, then 402 — 402 was a prerequisite of 403). Modern algebra is number theory on steroids. The average grade in those classes was around 3.0, and I earned a 3.9, 4.0, and 4.0 respectively. I met my teacher (from 403 and 404) a few years after on the bus and admitted to her then that I had taken them out of order.
11. I am a ham, and I am shy and don’t like imposing at the same time.
12. I have 27 goldfish. Half of them are quite large — 12 or more inches long in the body.
13. I come from a line of teachers and would love to be a teacher. All of them are in my mother’s side of the family: my mother (10? years), my uncle (12? years), my grandmother (30 years) and my grandfather (44 years).
14. I played concert flute from 5th thru 9th grade. These days I (occasionally) play folk flutes and the digeridoo.
15. When singing, I’m good at harmonizing but I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.
16. I first used a computer when I was three — an IMSAI 8080 (the same computer that Mathew Broderick has in the movie War Games). I apparently started programming very shortly thereafter.
17. My mother didn’t want to teach me to read when I was three, so I started to teach myself. She was afraid that I’d be bored when I was taught in school — an all-to-reasonable fear as it turns out.
18. My left ring finger is a 1/4 inch shorter than my right ring finger because of an accident involving a toy wooden stove.
19. One of my proudest accomplishments was working on several medical devices, one of which made the national news — in a good way.
20. A few years back, I worked at a game company called PopCap Games as the systems administrator. I’m to blame for the idea for BookWorm, which has wasted many thousands of hours of otherwise productive time.
21. I like wearing a kilt. I was married in one, and I own two: a Great Kilt (a very formal kilt) and a Utilikilt. Yes, I do have Scots blood. Yes, they are very comfortable.
22. When doing something that is boring to me, I often don’t do well. I do best in challenging environments where I have a lot of different things to do.
23. 50 degrees out is still t-shirt weather for me, and I have trouble with high temperatures + high humidity.
24. I can read the microprinting on the 5, 10, and 20 dollar bills without a magnifying glass. I’ve seen it other places, as well.
25. Without my glasses, I am legally blind (I have around 20/300 or 20/400 vision.) With my glasses, I have 20/13 vision.