7 things that we don't know about you....

6. I am directly related to Johannes Kepler; my Grandma's maiden name is Kepler. Many of you probably don't actually know who he is, but if you are and engineer or physicist, or anything like that, there's a decent chance you have. He was a pretty big deal mathematician/astrologer/astronomer in Germany in the 17th century.

This is awesome! I took an entire class on his laws of planetary motion in college.
 
went to a school that was nationally ranked in broadcast communications (back in the late 80's).
Ball State?

Just spitballin', I know it was a big deal back then for that, probably might still be.
 
Ball State?

Just spitballin', I know it was a big deal back then for that, probably might still be.

They were one of my choices but I went to Morehead State University in Morehead, Ky.
 
Edit: yankee.. my ass :alien:

I know right. Spent almost half my life abroad. My dad and that side of my family are all New Yorkers and I am a huge Yankees fan.
 
Originally Posted by Michigan Slice<br />
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5. I was arrested and put in jail in turkey, for raising my voice in public. (Too long of a story to tell here)
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wow id love to hear that story! my wifes family is greek and they all have told me horror stories about turkey and its probably the worst place in the world to be in jail

It was 1996 in Izmir, Turkey.
Our ship pulled in for a port visit, and while on the waterfront, a shoe shine guy sprayed this goop on my suede doc Martens boots and demanded I pay him for a shoe shine.
I started yelling at him for ruining my boots, there were police nearby and I was detained, and thrown in a cell.
3 days later, my Commanding officer got me out with the condition I could not set foot in the city again.
After I told my side of the story, I didn't get in any trouble as far as the Navy was concerned, but my visit to Izmir was over!

Jail there is no joke, I got a jug of water a day, a vitamin, 1/2 loaf of bread, and some nuts each day to eat.
 
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wow id love to hear that story! my wifes family is greek and they all have told me horror stories about turkey and its probably the worst place in the world to be in jail

It was 1996 in Izmir, Turkey.
Our ship pulled in for a port visit, and while on the waterfront, a shoe shine guy sprayed this goop on my suede doc Martens boots and demanded I pay him for a shoe shine.
I started yelling at him for ruining my boots, there were police nearby and I was detained, and thrown in a cell.
3 days later, my Commanding officer got me out with the condition I could not set foot in the city again.
After I told my side of the story, I didn't get in any trouble as far as the Navy was concerned, but my visit to Izmir was over!

Jail there is no joke, I got a jug of water a day, a vitamin, 1/2 loaf of bread, and some nuts each day to eat.

No offense, but that would make for a very boring Locked up Abroad episode :clown:
 
Cool thread - here are my seven!

1.. When I was young, I hit the ball a long way, but only at the range - didn't actually play much. Didn't get the nickname 'Bigball" until AFTER my back issues started and I lost a lot of my distance! Actually got the name big ball by a friend when I hit a good drive. I was (still somewhat am ) a fairly muscular guy, and he said a big ball by big ball. It just stuck - some of the newer guys I play with I am pretty sure don't know my real name!

2. At 5'10, I could dunk a basketball

3. I have 2 boys from my first marriage. I have a step son and step-daughter from my second. And 2 dogs. And a lizard. And a Turtle.

4. I hate facebook, etc. No, you don't really have 1000 friends, and I don't want to see your picture of Buster the Bulldog snuggling with Cloe the cat. So naturally my wife is on there all the time...

5 I hate the wussification of America - don't get me started lol. Yea, here is your trophy for 5th place - not!

6. Met Cindy, my second wife, on match.com. One of the best things I ever did was let myself be talked into getting on there!

7. I absolutely believe the JFK shooting was a conspiracy, No way did Oswald pull that off alone. And I have some serious doubts about the whole Bin Laden death, etc.
 
These are great reads. I'll give it a shot...
1.) I go by my middle name. My dad and I have the same first name and my parents thought it would get confusing.
2.) I'm a very good artist and can draw pretty much anything.
3.) I have 2 daughters 20 years apart.
4.) I met my wife playing ice-hockey while subbing in a beer league. She's got more of a mean streak than me :)
5.) I'm a closet Dallas Cowboys fan, just liked them when I was a kid and it stuck.
6.) I'm very squeamish and wouldn't even watch the Stamkos injury. My buddy keeps sending me pics of that college basketball player that snapped his leg last year just to mess with me.
7.) I think I'm a borderline hoarder, don't like to throw away anything.
 
This thread is very interesting and lets you get to know some of the people on here better without ever actually meeting them…as I thought about how to approach this I figured I have been alive almost 6 decades so why not hit the highlights for each (and then some)…

  1. Kid - I was a very good athlete but did not realize it due to an abusive step-father…the last team I played football for in Miami, FL, I never came off the field…I was the starting QB, Safety, kicker and punter…one game I threw three touchdown passes and one interception and my step-dad yelled at me all the way home about the interception…I played one more year and then never played again…at age 40 I could still throw a football 60 yards on a rope…what a waste.
  2. Teens - were horrible as I got into trouble a lot, dropped out of high school my senior year (after attending Catholic school for three years so got an education) and got kicked out of my house at 18…one good thing is I learned to play the drums and played in a few bands but sold my set at 19 and never played again.
  3. 20’s - Life got much got better as I joined the USAF and got into many sports…I actually played Volleyball for quite a few USAF teams as I had a 40 inch vertical…I could dunk a basketball anyway I could think of in my 20’s but liked Volleyball better. Oh yeah and I won a USCF cycling race and was a category 3 racer for two years.
  4. 30’s – Fought in Desert Shield/Storm (life changing experience)…got out of the USAF after 12 years and finished education in Accounting at Louisiana Tech University. Got hired by KPMG out of school.
  5. 40’s – Met the love of my life (oh yeah I was married a few times before my 40’s), found the sport of golf and worked my way up the corporate ladder.
  6. 50’s – Reached single digit handicap in my game as I was working toward competing at the Senior level but I have had two horrible shoulder surgeries (left and right…probably all from volleyball) in the last three years so game has become stagnant.
  7. Lastly I guess one thing that even most people around me don’t know (my wife does) is that my favorite musician is Paul Hardcastle…smooth jazz!
 
A fellow Tech grad! I graduated BS in Aerospace Engineering in 2011. I've played the Virginia Tech Golf Course more times than I can count - had a season pass there for 2 years. I could probably draw the layout of that course for you on a sheet from memory, including the bunkers haha.

And I feel you on #3. I played saxophone in HS and college in classical wind ensembles, but I only rarely pick it up now to screw around. It's just not the same when you're playing by yourself and not practicing towards a common goal with an ensemble.

I also had a pass to the the Tech course for a few years before your time. Not sure how much it was when you were there, but it only $150 to play all year back in the 90s. I stayed one summer and played multiple times each day. Sometimes I would go there before they even opened and play a couple times before work. Definitely miss those days.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk
 
great stuff so far! Here are my 7:
1: I have suffered with a dibilitating fear of flying. I have lost a job, and had to cancel a final interview for a pharmacautical sales job due to my inability to mentally get on a plane to travel to a training and the interview. I have taken steps to change that and have flown twice a year for the past 2 years with minimal discomfort.

2: I chose my college without ever physically stepping foot on campus and moved clear across country to go there. I was only accepted to 2 schools, one was in the same town I went to high school (cold/snowy RI) and the other was in Boca Raton, FL. I first saw college during Freshman orientation.

3: I have driven from RI (on a Friday morning) to Key West, FL (left sunday night) just to attend fantasy fest back in my college days. Look it up, you'll understand...

4: The last cruise ship I was on nearly capsized. We were leaving the island of Tortola, BVI and the autopilot took a hard left going full speed. This ship listed 17 degrees (they say at 24 it would have gone over). 3 people were airlifted after the pots full of soup in the kitchen fell on them, and one person had a slot machine fall on them and break their leg in 2 places. I haven't been on a cruise since.

5: I was in a verbal altercation with Vanilla Ice. Spring break 2000 in Daytona Beach, Mr. Ice and I were staying in the same hotel when him and his entourage cut me off and took the elevator I was going to take up to my room. This was at the time when he was no longer a "rapper" he was a "rock star." I proceeded to give him a piece of my mind and he came out of the elevator swearing at me like I beat up his grandmother. His bodyguards pulled him back into the elevator and closed the door. I still laugh everytime I hear Ice, Ice Baby...

6: I lost 99% of my friends in college when my son was born, except for my friend Timmy. I wouldn't change it for the world, but I have a hard time creating meaningful friendships as I'm always skeptical that they will leave at some point.

7: I can relate almost any word or phrase to a song I've once heard somewhere... It's a wierd trait, and some of the songs I have to relate to are even weirder.
 
Simple, tell us 7 things people don't know about you.

I'll start.
1. When I was very young, our house burned down.
I never knew that until my dad told me about a year ago. I was having nightmares about being burned.

2. I lied to get into the Navy. One of the questions was about sleepwalking. I used to sleepwalk. Every night I tied my ankle to my rack, so that I couldn't sleepwalk.

3. I was never called C.J. Until kindergarten, my teacher came up with that because I was having trouble spelling my whole name. (Shocker huh?)

4. I have been on my own since 16. My dad and I had a falling out a month after my 16th birthday, I moved out and didn't speak or have contact with him until my wedding. (Married at 18 years old), we have an awesome relationship now!

5. I was arrested and put in jail in turkey, for raising my voice in public. (Too long of a story to tell here)

6. I was in training to be a US Navy Seal. I only had 4 weeks left. I broke my ankle doing a night parachute training drop.
Landed too stiff, on loose rocks, poor technique.
Got dropped medically from the program.

7. When I was 19, my best friend and I were snowmobiling, he stopped and I didn't. I was following him. I ran him over, and he is paralyzed. We are still very tight. I speak to him every single day.
Toughest thing I've had to deal with in my life.

You?! Raising your voice in public? I'm shocked!

Interesting Sh*t, C.J.! People are gonna feel intimidated to answer this by comparison! It'll be like the scene from Jaws, where the two sailors are comparing scars & poor Chief Brody only has an appendix operation scar.
 
1) I was born in Berlin, Germany, the son of two US military Sergeants, my mom in the USAF and my dad in the Army. They both happily ETS'd and I grew up in Northern Virginia.

2) I am a second degree black belt in Isshinryu Karate-do after about 8 years of study. My fondness for fighting sports continues, as I'm also a level 2 certified instructor in the Army's Modern Army Combatives Program.

3) I was homeschooled starting in the fourth grade. While homeschooling meant no sports, I did play in a band and learned the trombone and saxophone. These days I stick to guitar.

4) I'm a enormous geek. Before golf took over, most of my fun money went toward playing Magic the Gathering. Being homeschooled, I learned things differently, and mostly through games. Games will teach you everything your algebra, civics, and statistics classes were supposed to teach you, IMO. They're just more fun.

5) I joined the Army in 2002 to be a Bradley Linebacker crewmember, pretty much on the basis of being told they didn't send Bradleys to Afghanistan. I was in AIT when we invaded Iraq. Joke's on me, I guess.

6) I am a Redskins, Red Sox, and Boston Bruins fan. The Redskins because I was told in 1992 that we would get the day off from second grade after the Super Bowl if the Redskins won. And they did. The Red Sox and Bruins because my mother is from northern Rhode Island, and while she might be pretty ambivalent about football, I remember her telling stories about the great Bruins' era of the early 1970's and they seemed like a good team to root for. Pretty much the same for the Red Sox. I get a lot of stuff from my dad, but my sports teams I get from my mom.

7) I taught myself to speed-read, and then had to unlearn it, because books became no fun. These days I try to stick to books that are hard to read so I don't just absorb the page and move on. I have to read things that make me think. I'd rather read Dostoyevski than Patterson, simply because I'll blow through a Patterson book in a couple of hours, but Crime & Punishment takes some rumination.
 
You?! Raising your voice in public? I'm shocked!

Interesting Sh*t, C.J.! People are gonna feel intimidated to answer this by comparison! It'll be like the scene from Jaws, where the two sailors are comparing scars & poor Chief Brody only has an appendix operation scar.

Not at all!
I absolutely love reading all the answers!
Interesting people here!
And actually there are a few that I find quite interesting and envious!
 
Pretty cool thread! Got #3 in common with Paladin :D

1. My fiance was previously my boss in the kitchen at Earls. Yes, we were dating while she was my boss and yes I had the best work schedule ever! Although working with your partner is quite difficult and many fights occurred because of it. Now that we have different jobs, fights have gone down to almost 0.

2. I have been to the hospital more times than I can remember (for real, I can't remember a few). The worst one was in Edmonton at Stratotech Park where I was racing in the Superbike class and got pushed off the track at the entrance of turn 1. You aren't supposed to go off the track there and I hit a wall dead on at about 120 km/h. Smashed right into shoulder first and pretty much blew up my arm. Was in hospital for 7 days because they would not let me go with the amount of blood I lost. Most surprising part of this one was that only my arm got hurt, never got knocked out which was weird.

3. I love to play Magic the Gathering. I have participated in events called Grand Prix's in Austin, Seattle, Las Vegas and Vancouver (LV being the biggest with over 4,000 people in the main event and around 7,000 in attendance). It's a great game that really challenges you, plus you constantly get to meet an extremely wide variety of people just like golf.

4. The two coolest places I have gone to were both in China while my family was there to adopt my youngest sibling. The first was a section of the Great Wall outside of Beijing. You don't quite understand the enormity and scale of it until you are there standing on top of it. Not sure how to describe it other than epic. The second was in the Yunnan province just outside Kunming called the Stone Forest. It's just that, a forest with stones the size of apartment buildings for miles and miles. I'm positive if that we didn't have a guide, we would have got lost and it could have ended badly.

5. I seem to be uncomfortable with cities/towns/vacation areas that have no mountains. I actually feel somewhat unsafe if there are no mountains anywhere in sight, like I'm vulnerable or something but I can't quite put my finger on what the feeling is. This is probably a product of living in Vancouver my whole life and being able to tell where I am at any time by which mountains are where.

6. I am into any and all sports! I also happen to be the type of person who hates being bad at something, so I will push myself in every sport I try to be at least better than average. I never played hockey while I was a kid and on Wednesday I will take my first strides on the ice with a hockey stick, should be quite the adventure!

7. I like pizza, a lot. It's actually the best food. Ever.
 
1) I wanted to be a pilot growing up, specifically I wanted to fly F16's in the USAF. My mom broke the bad news somewhere around the time I was 11, I couldn't be a military pilot because I was color blind. Anyone who has seen little miss sunshine knows how the next few minutes went down. I spent the next 10 years hoping they would come up with some like Lasik Surgery but to fix color deficiencies... didn't happen.

2) I was an incredibly stupid kid, I was always jumping off of tall things, jumping stuff on my bike/ skates/ anything else with wheels. I would do just about anything on a dare, and I played tackle football in the yard just about every day. I also played hockey, was into aggressive skating, wakeboarding, ski jumping, and motocross. Despite all of this, I have never broken a bone (unless you count fingers, toes and my nose... which I don't). I have torn sprained and otherwise ouchied quite a few ligaments, plus I've had more than my shares of concussions.

3) On one of my first dates with my wife, we were sitting and talking and I asked how tall she was, and she replied 6'2". I started freaking out, since I'm only 6'1" and 3/4. Turns out 6'2" was her listed height in volleyball, and they tend to embellish quite a bit. She is only 6'... I still got her by a good bit.

4) I once decided I wanted to get into Triathalon's, I was about half way through the swim when I realized how much I hated that idea. I finished the race... but I sure won't do that again.

5) Top Gun is the greatest movie of all time. I guess this is more of a fact than anything having to do with me.

6) I can't eat spicy food. Anything that is remotely spicy will tear my world apart.

7) In 3.5 years as a cop, I never had to taze, shoot, pepper spray, or use any other protective action against anyone. The farthest I every had to go was some light hand combat and wrestling. I'm not really sure why this was, I certainly was better at deescalating situations than most of my peers, and people tended to listen to me when I told them I would taze them. I did pepper spray quite a few dogs however.
 
This thread is deep, very interesting. Lets see how I do

6) I'm of German decent and I love the German language and going to Germany is 1st on my bucket list.

My grandaughter and her husband (Air Force) are stationed in Germany. We're going over next year, as she is preggers and my great grandaughter will be born there.
 
why not...

1) I have a slight case of social anxiety and do not like to be the center of attention, I feel like everyone is watching and judging my every move at times. I enjoy the outings but if I'm not the most talkative person on the course, at the restaurant or hanging out in a central hotel room with everyone it doesn't mean I'm not having fun. I realize it makes me come off as a jerk or boring person sometimes but I promise I'm not trying to be rude. For this reason I also choose not to share my feelings often, even with those I care about the most. It is a flaw I am working on.

2) I love sports/hobbies. I am generally decent at most things I have tried: golf, baseball/softball, basketball, billiards, table tennis (#bringit Phil), shooting sports, etc. However I am NOT great at ANY of them.

3) I'm 32 and have never had a drop of alcohol or smoked anything. I have enough addictions to overcome, I don't need any more.

4) I could tell you almost anything you want to know about a residential appraisal. I have reviewed thousands of them.

5) I have a little OCD as well. I have to proof read everything and make sure I am conveying what I want to say as best as possible. I also have a routine and hate to break that routine.

6) I hate being late to anything. I think being late is very disrespectful. (however I'm not confrontational with those who are)

7) I met my wife at work. We worked in the same department doing the exact same thing. We still work in the same department and at times have had our desks a mere 10 feet apart. It has its pros and cons...lol

EDIT: #4 didn't have a space between the ")" and "I" and due to #5 I had to fix it.
 
I never would have guessed #1 from playing with you.
 
I would like to challenge you in ping pong (table tennis? Come on!) :D
 
I never would have guessed #1 from playing with you.

I appreciate it buddy but I can assure you there is a constant battle in between my ears. Some days I overcome it better than others, being on the golf course certainly helps!
 
I would like to challenge you in ping pong (table tennis? Come on!) :D

I think #TheKing would be a great opportunity since #ImWithHarry. :drinks:
 
I appreciate it buddy but I can assure you there is a constant battle in between my ears. Some days I overcome it better than others, being on the golf course certainly helps!

I get that, regardless that was a fun round.
 
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