I've been tagged.

Okay, so Austin Contrarian tagged M1EK, and M1EK tagged me, but only now, one month and one day later, have I finally come around to responding. I'm supposed to come up with seven facts about myself. So here goes:


1. I currently live in the same neighborhood where I grew up. In fact, with the exception of the two years I spent in Austin, the three years I lived in Denton County, the nine months I lived in Sagemont (a suburb southeast of Houston) and the eighteen months I lived in Midtown, I've spent my entire life in this neighborhood.

2. On a related note, I love Houston. This is a great city full of great people and great things to do and I have no desire to ever live anywhere else.

I know that there are legions of people out there who, for whatever reason, hate Houston. They think that this city is a miserable hellhole and they don't understand why anybody would willingly live here. In my experience, most people who dislike Houston have a) never even visited this city, b) never ventured inside the loop (although, in their defense, they are bound to have a bad experience if their sole experience of Houston is Greenspoint or Westchase or whatever suburban schlock exists along the Sam Houston Parkway), or c) hate any city other than their own. These people can bite me.

3. On the subject of cities: As much as I enjoy the urban form and experience, there are several major cities within the United States that I have yet to visit. For example, I have never set foot within Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, Salt Lake City, San Diego, San Francisco, Portland or Seattle. And I've been to all of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, DC exactly once apiece in my entire life. I really need to get out more.

4. When I was nine years old, I (rather stupidly) jumped off a ledge on my bike, did a faceplant on the concrete and broke four of my front teeth. 26 years and thousands of dollars worth of root canals, caps, posts-and-cores, and, finally, extractions later, all I have to show for it is a resin partial where my teeth used to be. Maybe one of these days I'll be able to afford implants.

The lesson I've learned that I want to pass on is this: if you've broken (not chipped, but broken) your teeth, don't believe any dentist who claims that they can "save" them. Over the long term, they can't. If' they're broken, go ahead and get them extracted. Use the money you would have spent trying to "save" them on implants instead.

5. I like to cook. In fact, I prepare most of the meals in this household.

6. I love being a father, because it gives me an excuse to buy all the cool toy sets that didn't exist when I was a child (like GeoTrax or Rokenbok). I can buy these things with the rationalization that Kirby will be able to play with them, too. Maybe. If I let him.

7. I spent four years in high school studying theatre and five-and-a-half years in college (undergrad) studying architecture. My current career has absolutely nothing to do with either of these disciplines.

I'm supposed to tag seven other people with this meme. The problem is that, since M1EK is one of like 4 semi-regular readers of this blog, and he already tagged Steve, another semi-regular reader of this blog, I really don't have seven other people I can tag. So I'll make do with five people who might check on this blog often enough to notice that they've been tagged: my brother Dave, Todd at collegefootballtopten.com, John, Andrew over at the neoHouston blog (a new favorite read of mine), and Seabee over in Dubai.