Still More Random Facts

By popular request or something: 8 more, more or less random facts about me that you have a reasonable chance of not knowing. Feel free to post yours! Just pick a number between 5 and 15, and post that many random facts. Or ask and I'll pick a number. Or ask someone around you. The first rule of this game is that there really aren't any!

Full disclosure: It's possible this was a Facebook post. It's possible this was not a Facebook post. After watching X-Men: Days of Future Past I realize it's possible that it both was and wasn't a Facebook post. I suspect Schrodinger's cat hates me. I hope he's not a Sentinel.

1. I like most styles of music from country to rock to metal to big band to hip hop to western swing to... but even in the genres I generally loathe (opera, pop) there are always gems I love. Caveat: If Slim Whitman is a genre, I haven't heard anything I liked.)
2. If I like a song or album, I may well just put it on repeat.[4] Earlier this week I listened to U2's "Gloria" at least a half dozen times before putting _Under a Blood Red Sky_ on repeat. I once left the same CD in my car's player for at least three months, and listened to it on my thirty to sixty minute each way, every day I worked.
3. In 1966 Aunt Betty (my Mom's sister) and her family came to visit. My teenaged cousin, Steve, had a 45[16] with the just released "Secret Agent Man". He played that non-stop[6] on the stereo morning to night, singing and playing his (or maybe Mom's) guitar, except when they made him stop for meals, or to watch the news or a ball game. I loved it but it drove my parents nuts. Dad claimed Steve wore out the brand new $10[2] diamond needle on the turntable.
4. Even unloaded, guns and mind-altering things don't mix. During my hippie daze, a housemate brought a couple of lovely, old family rifles back after a trip home. While I'm pretty sure we were not actually high at the time, we were still impaired as it had become a way of life. When another housemate got home, we dove behind a sofa and chair. When he came into the room looking for us we jumped up with rifles aimed at him and yelled, "BANG!" He died on the spot. Or thought he had. He was tripping, and it seriously froke him out. Stupid idea. Don't do it.
5. When I took that job as a paper boy[8] I really wanted to buy the previous route owner's Honda Cub 50 scooter, but Dad wouldn't let me. Nor would he let me get a ten speed. I ended up with Schwinn's[11] beefiest road bike, a single speed, with heavy duty baskets front and back. The baskets turned out to be a lifesaver, especially on Sundays when the papers were huge. The baskets would have looked stupid on a ten speed... but man was that bike a pig to get up some of those Augusta hills! On the other hand, my legs were in *great* shape after a few weeks.
6. A friend with a route and I threw parts of our routes together. One of us had James Brown's[12] grandmother[13] as a customer[14]. We went down a gravel driveway past a covered stoop; the paper had to be exactly in the middle of the doormat or our manager would get a complaint, and the paper's attitude was that the customer was always right and the paper boy wrong-- even if the customer said they wanted to maul the paper boy for fun. Then we continued down the gravel drive, around a sharp corner, and out into a busy street. We did this at top speed, sliding the bikes like dirt bike pros, because this house included the biggest German shepherd I have ever seen. He loved to hide in bushes and attack. He hated boys on bicycles. I once (LONG after I was no longer a paper boy) fantasized that I should have let the dog bite me and sued; I'd have been set for life. But in reality the dog would likely have devoured me and the Schwinn. And the extra papers. There would ha ve been no evidence.
7. My twin[15] brother Jon and I shared an apartment for a few months before Sharon and the kids were able to move to Austin. We were really into slingshots, BB guns, the predecessors to AirSoft, etc. We spent hours in the back yard shooting, starting with cans and working our way down to empty CO2 cartridges (the size of my middle finger) at ~20 feet. We got really good. When it was rainy we set up an indoor BB gun shooting range in the hallway. When I get one of my BB guns fixed, I am thinking indoor range again.
8. As a geek and long time software engineer, it annoys me that an "8" next to a ")" turns into a smiley face in browsers. It also delights me.[1] It also annoys me that it does this in browsers but not in apps. That does not delight me.

NOTES [1] I was putting Easter eggs in things before we called them that. [3]
[2] Per the government's inflation calculator, today (2014-06-05) that would be $72.29.
[3] Yes, I sometimes number these as I add them, not in order of appearance.[5][7]
[4] See #3.
[5] Why, no, I don't get confused about these. Why?
[6] You did read #2, right?
[7] If you are reading these, raise your hand.
[8] In a previous "random facts" post; go read it after this one, if you haven't![9]
[9] Or else![10]
[10] Or else what? I have no idea. Or else you won't?
[11] Which my friends who had discovered lightweight, Italian, racing bikes called a "Schwine".
[12] Yes, that James Brown!
[13] Hopefully I didn't tell this story before. If so, let me know and I will throw in a bonus fact.
[14] We never saw the lady. Or Mr. Brown. Just the dog, and once, a housekeeper. She shook something at us because the paper was an inch or two off center, but at least she didn't call the paper.
[15] Twins born to different sets of parents in different cities in different years, but so what? It's what's inside the head and heart that counts. There, we're twins.
[16] That's a record, a thing with music on it, not a pistol!