6 Things You Don't Know About Me

1)  My dog's name is Scrabble.  When we got him, his coloring was black and tan, which I suggested looked like Scrabble board pieces.  He has since turned more gray and tan, but we don't hold that against him.  Here's a picture:

2)  My first roles as an actor were a munchkin, a poppy, and a flying monkey in a production of The Wizard of Oz at a local college in 1991.  I was 9 years old.  I think close to 200 kids tried out for that production, and I was one of the 15 or so that they chose.  I'm pretty sure that I got cast because my tap shoes were too slick for the dance floor at the audition, and I managed to take a massive tumble on my butt part way through the dance routine they taught us.  The choreographer thought that was pretty funny, and I got the part.  Lesson: it's a good thing to get noticed.

3)  I wrote a full-length oratorio for my senior recital in college (I was a music major).  I also played several songs on the piano, and sang several classical songs (all pretty well, I might add).  For my efforts, I was rewarded with a C grade.  As the senior recital is meant to be a culminating experience, my self-worth was thrown for quite a loop.  Silly as it may seem, it took me a couple of years to get over what I viewed the experience as (a failure).

4)  My middle initial is also C, which I took as some pretty heavy-handed cosmic foreshadowing after the events of #3 occurred.

5)  Still, going to that college and getting that degree were super worth it because it was through that institution that I met my wife.  She and I met and sat next to each other in our very first class freshman year (Music Theory I).  She's pretty much the best, ever.

6)  When I was a little kid, I was jealous of my cousins because they liked black olives.  My jealously stemmed mostly due to fun they would have by sticking them on their fingers.  Obviously, because I never wanted to eat the olives, my parents wouldn't let me just play with them.  To this day, I'm still not a fan of the taste of olives, which is too bad, because a lot of restaurants down here in San Diego like to stick olives in a variety of dishes that I might otherwise enjoy.