100 Things About Me

1. I like to pee outside. I can't say why, but it is very relaxing. The more obstacles in the way of peeing the less I enjoy it. Maybe it's the pleasure of not holding it, but just letting it go.

2. I use tires until the wires show and then some.

3. I'm a tightwad. My home is hot in the summer and cold in the winter. I intend to get 250,000 miles out of my car. I was terribly excited when I bought five shirts and ties for $75. That was awesome.

4. I seem to care less about appearance as time goes on. I used to worry about it more when I was younger, but, then again, I guess it mattered more and I was uglier, too.

5. I almost never wash my car.

6. I think about washing my car sometimes, but then think I'll leave it until it needs a little body work or paint job. Those guys usually wash the car when they do that stuff.

7. I like animals and plants of all sorts. If I have nothing to do and nowhere to go (rarely the case), I find it very interesting to just watch common birds.

8. I really like finding lizards. Mexico is good for that. I found one last week that was about eight inches long. That's good size for around here.

9. I couldn't throw a football to save my life.

10. I doubt that (#9) will ever be an issue.

11. I should study more and jack around less.

12. I wish archery equipment didn't cost so much.

13. I think my parents sold my bow in a garage sale. Other items that have suffered similar fates include a golf caddy, golf clubs, and undersized electronic keyboard.

14. I often think about things I'd like to learn to do, but there's not enough time.

15. I'd like to take a third run at learning to play piano. That would require a piano though, and I know better than to get impulsive like that. See #3.

16. I like painting, but it requires time to be set aside for quiet thinking in a private setting. That hardly ever happens anymore.

17. I am a cynical person, but I also try to be optimistic.

18. I am clearly an Aquarius, Gemini, Capricorn, Saggitarius, Taurus, Cancer, Leo, Pisces, or Libra according to #17.

19. I probably drink too much caffiene. sometimes I drink over 100 ounces of diet soda a day.

20. I hardly ever drink alcohol. When I do it is usually less than twelve ounces.

21. I like to travel, and I go on a lot of trips. When I go far away, I sometimes think about how I used to think I would never go far away. I would never have guessed that I would have traveled like I have.

22. I wish I would have started traveling earlier. It would no longer suit my tastes to live in a foreign country for some extended time, but it would have suited me fine at some earlier time.

23. I think it would have also been nice to have started in on my career earlier. Being a veterinarian or automotive repairman is too much fun to not start as early as possible.

24. Birthdays quit being happy occasions about six years ago. I still have a good time, but I don't want to get older.

25. I spend 15% of my time thinking about the past, 35% about the present, and 50% about the future. I think that's a good thing for me.

26. I hate most television, but I watch some when I'm on vacation.

27. I hardly ever listen to new mainstream music. I don't know what happened exactly, but I expect it is because I always relied on friends for exposure. I don't hang around anyone who would expose me to new music.

28. I heard some radio program playing traditional Irish music a few days ago and thought it might drive me to suicide.

29. I wish it wasn't so hot outside.

30. Sometimes if I have to do something quick outside, I try to arrange it post-shower. Then I don't quite dry off, and I go out either nude or in my underwear. That restricts me to the backyard, which has a privacy fence.

31. I guess I don't care much if the neighbors see me. They shouldn't be peeping. See #4. Do not see #1.

32. I have a short little span of attention.

33. What were we talking about? I say that a lot.

34. I like peace and quiet more than just about any other sound. Loud talking, loud bass, background television, and barking dogs are like mild torture for me.

35. I must be a Southerner. A study showed that Southerners take momentary insults much more to heart than do Northerners. I can't stand inconsiderate people.

36. I was once told that someone heard a person ask another person if they knew me. That person who was asked was heard to say, "Oh, FD McKracken? He's a real gentleman." That had a profound, out-of-proportion impact on me.

37. I wouldn't say it is anything new, but I think I try to be a gentleman more often because of that. It is weird.

38. If you drop something, I am almost certain to make a grab for it.

39. I feel especially good about catching thing before they hit the ground. It makes me feel quick.

40. Quick people are not dead. They are a completely separate category of flesh. I know this because I pay attention.

41. I used to eat fast food maybe ten times a day for about eight years.

42. Now I eat pretty damn healthy.

43. I eat things I never would have guessed I'd be eating regularly. These foods include eggplant, chickpeas, mushrooms, onions, peppers, veal, chard, rocket plant, tofu, and other things I can't name because I didn't pay attention.

44. I can't believe how often I eat a meal that calls for lime juice or yogurt to be applied as a condiment of sorts.

45. I once ate a teaspoon of fresh-ground horseradish in one bite. It seared the backs of my eyes with the fire of Hell.

46. I don't think a decent person could really believe that most of humanity ends up in everlasting fire.

47. I can't type worth a damn. If I could I would be a more successful person.

48. I won't spend dedicated time on learning to type because there are more efficient ways of becomeing more successful at my endeavors. Also it would be drudgery.

49. I avoid drudgery as much as possible.

50. I have been told a few times that I am no fun on certain occasions when I explain that opinions may conflict with facts. Explaining why it is unlikely that the Roswell incident involved a real alien encounter is an example of not being fun.

51. I usually like people when I meet them individually in a controlled setting.

52. I wish I could find a book on nothing but experiences involving people with disconnected corpi callosa.

53. I am tired of hearing people wonder if everyone interprets the sensation of a certain wavelength of visible light in the same way.

54. I'm not really that tired of it (#53). I only heard people discuss it a few times. Really though, it goes nowhere.

55. I regret a lot of things I have done.

56. I am surprised at how things turn out. Being prepared for suprises is a good policy. It suits the Boy Scouts, and Louis Pasteur said chance favors the prepared mind.

57. I think it would be good to give my kids Louis Pateur bedsheets and tell them about William Harvey while driving somewhere, but studies show that I cannot warp them into my style with even my best effort. They either arrived pre-warped or they are unwarpable. Pre-warped kids will benefit from the extra warping, but it will just annoy the unwarped. That's the strength of genes on personality.

58. I don't like people knowing too much about me if they don't know me personally. That's why I would prefer to not be linked to on the internet and why I don't give my full name, but use F.D. instead.

59. I wish there was a fairly private pool with a high dive nearby.

60. Maybe I'll go tomorrow to a pool since I have the day off.

61. I understand that good art is hard to produce. I envy good artists.

62. I'd like to have a dog or two. I'd like to have all sorts of animals, but land is pretty scarce if you intend to keep up the automotive or veterinarian line of work.

63. I think the days of swords were better than the days of guns for one reason. Any dope can carry a gun and be a threat. A dope with a sword would not be nearly as threatening. If psychopaths had to be more talented, it would cut down on crime. Plus, a good guy who brandishes a sword is much cooler than a gun-toting cop. Besides all that, these days are much better.

64. I think Hobbes was generally right about short, nasty, and brutish lives.

65. I cannot believe that bookstores make money considering the general public's lack of enthusiasm for reading. Does anyone know the stats on what kinds of book sell by percentage of the whole?

66. I wish I was still a gambler, but I lost interest in that too. I'd pick it up again if an old school style game could be arranged.

67. I wish I had more free time, but I also really like working.

68. My shoes are an average of about three years old (n=5).

69. I cannot do math as well as I could ten years ago.

70. My last math class was 9 years ago.

71. I was asked to help with an algebra problem last week, and it nearly defeated me. Herb and Dave take six hours to finish a job together. How long does Dave take alone if he takes five hours longer than Herb does alone? I got the answer, but I still am not happy with my approach.

72. I hid my work on the problem from most of my coworkers.

73. I sometimes womder if a book I am carrying might look like a Bible to someone. If so, I try to hide it. I wouldn't want to encourage anyone. See #4 and wonder how true it really is.

74. I try to take stairs instead of elevators, but it is often an act of willpower.

75. I am now in the stage of my life when I think about taking stairs instead of elevators.

76. I can't believe my dad had two kids when he was more than five years younger than me.

77. I'm a lot like my dad.

78. I am worry about money occasionally, but not too much.

79. I actively try not to think of things I want. It is better to not know.

80. I almost never nap nowadays.

81. I enjoy napping on the floor.

82. I hate fire ants. I get bit by one about once every two weeks during the warmer months.

83. I hate mosquitos. They are the scourge of most of the warm regions of the world. They ruin many otherwise nice settings.

84. I stop into the lounge at work when I arrive in the morning for a breakfast of Diet Coke and a banana.

85. I once was forced into an ice-breaker in which I had to tell someone else what celebrity I looked like, what was the best fruit, and what I planned to do in the future. The result was a woman with a thick Peurto Rican accent saying to about sixty people, "This is F.D. He want the Blues Clues boy to play him on TV. He think the apple is the best fruit because you can travel with it and cook it and eat it. He doesn't have any plans for his future." Uh, yeah, something like that.

86. I don't mind touching filth, but I prefer to do it with gloves.

87. I hate slick advertising almost universally.

88. I would feel sick to my stomach if I had a son or daughter who told me she or he wanted to go into adverstising. Being a lawyer would require some explanation of the good intentions involved before I would feel well.

89. I have nothing against gay people, so I wouldn't care much if I had a gay kid. The only down side would be the lack of grandkids (bearing my genes for idiosyncracies).

90. A late night at home lasts past 10 p.m.

91. I like drive-thru animal parks.

92. I threw away a metal trash can under the kitchen sink because it was difficult to clean.

93. I put clothes in the freezer on hot days sometimes.

94. I used to never keep a budget, but I do now.

95. I don't take any pills right now, and I hope it stays that way for a long time.

96. I won't ride a motorcycle anymore.

97. I don't like people singing in public when they were not asked to do so. That goes for whistling too. Don't try to kid yourself or me into believing you are happy. Nothing says anxious narcissicist/histrionic like singing in public. Unless you are just really dumb.

98. I like to sing songs with made up lyrics sometimes (but not, say, while shopping). Here's a good one: There's blackjack, and poker, and Russian roulette. Gonna set my soul on fire. Viva Las Vegas!

99. I wish I spoke better Spanish.

100. I have to go to bed right now!