I wasn't planning on blogging until 2007 because I'm knee-deep in the Christmas Holiday right about now, but Andy's getting pretty antsy, and the weird-toothed supertasting blind man got so incredibly into the spirit of the "tag," so I thought I should follow suit...so here's five things you may not have known about me (although if you know me well enough to read my boring little blog, than you probably already do). Here's something to read, nonetheless:
1. I could read really well at an early age. I'm not exactly sure at what age and at what level (you'd have to ask my parents), but I'm pretty sure I was reading the newspaper pretty well at age four, since I was told by one of my former pre-school teachers that I used to read the paper to the class. We're probably not talking about flying through the business section at break-neck speed, but apparently I could comprehend words and sentences at an advanced level for my age because in Kindergarten I remember going to classes with struggling third- and fourth-graders to practice reading while my classmates were at recess. When I got into high school though, I hated reading. I rarely read anything that was assigned to me and NEVER read anything other than Sports Illustrated for recreation. Nowadays I read more than I ever have.
2. I had at least five concussions in my adolescent years. Four of these were sports-related (one from football, one from basketball and two from baseball), and at least two were semi-serious. The other that I know of came when I was chasing my younger brother around the house and he slammed the bathroom door on my noggin. The football injury came at Alden in a junior varsity game my sophomore year. I was playing outside linebacker and a guy tried to hurdle me as I tackled him and he nailed me in the melon with his knee. I don't remember the next 30 minutes or so of the game, including returning a kickoff to mid-field before I was removed from the game because I was wandering around like a guy with...well, a concussion. The first thing I remember after trying to tackle the guy is standing on the sideline, pads off, staring at the ground. Weird stuff. The basketball injury I actually have on videotape from my junior year, but it's debatable about whether or not I suffered a concussion. I went up for a shot and got undercut, flipping over backwards and landing on my neck. I was taken out of the game and my friend Collin shot my free throws, and the rest of the night is cloudy. I had a mild stomach ache but I remember most everything that happened. Having had a few concussions by this time in my life, I'm pretty sure that was one. The baseball ones were a little strange, and both resulted from sliding headfirst. The first was my freshman year. I was trying to score from second base and was running hard enough that my helmet came off rounding third. When I dove toward home plate, the ball actually hit me in the temple. I don't know if I touched home right away, but my mom says that for at least 45 seconds I was crawling around in the dirt trying to find the base even though it was right in front of my face. She came out onto the field with my coach and took me into the concession stand where she was working (she's a medical technician and wanted to monitor me). Apparently I asked her every 15 seconds whether or not I was safe and she kept repeating that I was. Don't remember it -- definite concussion. The fifth and last one is a pretty bizarre one that ends in me being taken off the diamond in an ambulance. I was diving headfirst into first base because it was a close play and I could see the throw was coming in high (some people ask why runners dive into first base, claiming it slows the runner down...my response is that while it may slow you down just a bit, I used to do it whenever there was a high throw to first, in case the first baseman jumped to catch the ball and tried to reach down and tag me). So I dive into first, this guy jumps, and kicks me right in the forehead. The strange thing is, I played like four more innings and even had a base hit and fielded some ground balls at shortstop. But I didn't talk to anyone. Then suddenly I started trying to bite one of my teammates and they called in the medical authorities. My mom (again) had been watching me and sensed something was wrong, so she was right on it and got me into an ambulance as soon as I became a cannibal in a baseball jersey.
3. I have only been sick one time in my life. And by sick I mean vomiting. And by vomiting I mean I'm not counting the three or four times (in college) where I threw up as a result of consuming too much alcohol. So much alcohol in fact, that I don't recall the actual feeling of vomiting at all. I'm not even sure I would know the warning signs. The only time I've thrown up from actual sickness or food poisoning was in second grade, and I barely remember it. I have a pretty tough stomach and have unknowingly eaten many rotten food items and never had any problems.
4. I once ate the Tremendous Twelve® at Perkins Restaurant in three minutes and forty-one seconds. What's the Tremendous Twelve®, you ask? Go here and scroll down. Many of you know I've accomplished this feat because it comes up a lot when people see me eating in public; I tend to finish my food by the time the rest of my party is placing their napkins in their lap. I'm getting better at conciously slowing down when eating, but sometimes I forget and I end up consuming a half-pound burger in just a few minutes (for those of you who'd have a frame of reference, I once ate a double-quarter pounder with cheese and a super-sized fry between the Welch Avenue McDonalds drive-thru and C.Y. Stephens Auditorium, and then topped it off with my super-size drink as I walked to the door of C.Y.).
If you'd like to try eating the Tremendous Twelve® in record time yourself, I'll let you in on my secret: The trick lies in how you order it. First of all, order it with sausage patties instead of bacon and order the eggs "over hard." This way you can essentially make a giant burger out of the pancakes, patties and eggs. Then you squish the "burger" down so you can get your mouth around it. It takes at least 40 seconds just to prepare your meal -- you have to douse everything in syrup, concentrating on the pancakes (the most dry part of the meal). Finally, order it "to go" so you get the styrofoam cases. These are easier to scoop food out of than a plate, which leads me to trick number two: Forget the silverware and go wild. You have to eat with your hands to do it fast (which is also why you need to get it to go; you look absolutely disgusting when doing it my way). I broke the record in the passenger seat of my friend Scott's Chevy Beretta. We used a stopwatch, and I got my meal free for doing it in under 4:00.
5. I have an incredibly small mouth. In high school, my orthodontist said a number of times when adjusting my braces that I have "the smallest adult mouth inside which he's ever worked" (for the record Sean, he didn't actually get inside of my mouth, but stuck his hands and ortho-tools inside it to "work"). The outside of my mouth looks fairly normal, but the inside is where it gets tiny. The roof of my mouth barely goes above the level of my upper front teeth, and I can't open very wide. I received a retainer after my braces were removed (which I still have and amazingly still fits) and when looking at it, you can get a true idea of how small my mouth is.
So there you have it. Five things about me. Now I'm gonna do some taggin':
Derek
Kelli
Joni
Rua
Adam
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