7 Things About Me

A friend of mine, Steve Belt, recently tagged me in a meme to explain seven things about me that you, as a reader, most likely wouldn’t know from talking with me on a normal basis.  This has all the feeling of those lame myspace bulletins, but I feel the added transparency can help open me up and it seems fun and the bottom line; it’s content, something I’m otherwise lacking, so here we go:

  1. I was involved in mixed martial arts before it got trendy and have been through about 13 years on and off of Jiu Jitsu and Pankration training.  I originally got started because I was a skinny kid who had a bigger mouth than body to back it up.  One of the fireman (my dad was FD) was a 4th degree Black-belt Instructor and had started transitioning to Jiu Jitsu, and after talking with him I did some physical labor and electrical work in his condo he taught me everything, which led to classes and clubs later on.  Currently I’m not active, but I would like to get back into some Krav Maga or Savate training but they charge far too much.
  2. I can’t get enough information, whether it be reading more blogs feeds or simply watching endless hours of Discovery, Travel, History or Military Channel. I love knowing everything.  It’s sometimes a curse.
  3. I love math, physics, astronomy, and history.  This leads to my interest in reverse engineering everything, how things are made, or the reason a dragster was a tenth of a second from crossing the line first.
  4. I originally went to college for Aeronautical Engineering and got 3/4 of the way through before being introduced to programming for the internet and never looked back.  I like the puzzle aspect and problem solving of programming, even though it stresses me out at times.
  5. I live and breathe competition.  This goes for sports, work and even conversations; I can’t help it and it aggravates people but I definitely don’t like to lose.
  6. I can name just about every single military aircraft on site, new or old, including x-type and training aircraft.  And, just for kicks, I’ll throw in that I love air shows and love fly-overs at games or racing events.
  7. I actually do enjoy volunteering, although I don’t do it very much.  In the past I’ve built 6 houses and 4 parks with playgrounds for Habitat for Humanity using my construction background.  I’ve volunteered at Burn camps (summer camps for kids with severe burns) through the fire department and helped with construction and remodel projects for widowed military wives.  I like doing it because it makes me feel good but I do pick and choose the recipients.

Thanks for reading and now I’m passing the flame and tagging 7 friends so you can learn more about them as well:

      These are the rules to play the game:

      1. Link your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.
      2. Share seven facts about yourself in the post.
      3. Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
      4. Let them know they’ve been tagged.

      Posted 24 December 2008 in For Your Information, written by:

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      • http://www.moriartys.net Jeff Moriarty

        Had no idea you were into martial arts. I took Krav Maga for several years when they opened in Chandler, but finally had to quit due to injuries (had a few trips to the ER out of it, too, and my first CAT scan). Liked the direct, no-nonsense aspect of it.

        Doesn’t look like there is an easy way to combine all your facts into one event… unless you fought a cage-match on top of a plane that was doing a flyover at a fund raiser for a charity. But if you sort that out, I would DEFINITELY come to watch.

      • http://www.realphoenixliving.com Steve Belt

        Chuck, awesome “content”. Happy Holidays and hopefully a wonderfully successful New Year!

      • http://blog.crowinfodesign.com [Charlene]

        You would have really fit in where I grew up outside of Wright-Patterson AFB. My last few years there, I worked on a DoD IT project in an office building with a view of the planes landing and taking off at the main airstrip. Some of the people would watch the planes out the window and could name every single one. Some of the more amazing things I saw: Air Force 1 (bunches of times), Stealth fighter, Stealth bomber, and the C-5 cargo plane (which is so big and appears to move so slowly that it looks like it is about to fall out of the sky on takeoff). The Thunderbirds were there all of the time, too. My dad used to take us to the Dayton Air Show every year until we were old enough to really complain. I’ve seen single and twin-prop planes doing dog fights, too.

        The day they dedicated a retired Stealth fighter to the USAF Museum (at the end of the first Gulf War), we watched it take off and circle the city before landing at the runway adjacent to the museum. It was truly an amazing thing to see.

        I used to drive past Huffman Prairie nearly every day, the place where the Wright brothers invented the airplane and started their business building planes and training pilots. My college is about 3 miles from that spot and was named for the Wright brothers, Wright State University. Now, it is infamous for being the place where John McCain introduced his VP running mate, Sarah Palin.

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