Seven Things - Tagged By Jeff Jones

Whoa, someone actually did tag me. And there I was thinking I'd managed to get myself shunned by the #phpapp/#works crowd as punishment for not getting an talk idea in for #tek ;-P

So then, my Seven Deadly(-to-my-rep) Nazgbits:

• Due to being a "Jr" named for a middle-named "Richard" that goes by "Dick", I had the memorable experience of my dad proclaiming to my extended family right after my high school graduation, "My oldest has now finished high school... he's now a man... hereafter, I shall be known as 'Big Dick', and Chuck shall be known as 'Little Dick'".
• I listened to mostly hair metal bands in the '80s, namely Van Halen, KISS, and Motley Crue... I remember my mother actually grounding me from my Hysteria CD in '88 because I was playing "Pour Some Sugar On Me" too often. I unexpectedly migrated to old country in the '90s, due to a long stint playing bass in a country band of musicians twenty years my senior... we were playing old Merle Haggard songs that I had never heard before, and discovering these songs for the first time, I found I really liked them all. Nowadays, I mostly listen to John Williams movie scores, acoustic guitar instrumentals, and occasionally a particular string quartet that makes me think of docblocks for some reason.
• I had long hair most of the '80s and '90s. I'd never ever heard the term "mullet" until long after mine was gone, but mine certainly was one... it was called a "punk" in Alabama in the '80s when I had my first one. When I finally decided to have it cut short, I had it pulled into a pony tail, snipped off (actually felt eerily like losing a finger), put it in a gift bag, drove to Tennessee, and presented it to my parents, saying "Mom & Dad, for your 25th anniversary, I've gotten you both something you've wanted for years".
  
• I was one earring away from missing my opportunity into the career path that got me where I am today. My first real job was as an electronic tech at BellSouth, a union job where my long hair and earring were a non-issue, but the only career path upward was by moving into management. By the time I started submitting resumes for management openings, I had short hair (see previous bullet) but still sported a gold Playboy bunny earring at work every day. On my way to the key interview, I can remember only having a ten-second mental debate about taking the earring out... the interviewing director knew I wore it, had seen me in it every time we'd met previously, and I was wearing my tech uniform to the interview since it occurred right after my workshift that day. In short, no clean-cut appearance, and the earring was already a known quantity. I suppose my instincts did kick in, as I took it out just before getting out of my car. About seven years later, that director told me with a smile that she remembered thinking before I got there, "if he walks in wearing that Playboy earring, there's no way I'm giving him a job". It was in this job that I learned Unix, thus beginning my path to where I am today.
  
• I'd never seen one line of PHP when I started my current job as a PHP programmer. In my previous job, I'd worked in Java, Perl, Tcl, and lots of Korn shell. I really liked Tcl, really hated Perl, and mostly enjoyed Java. Come to think of it, I'd never seen one line of Java, Perl, or Tcl when I started that previous job.
• I've collected all the FX lightsabers from Master Replicas. I keep them in a gun cabinet that my dad had built for my grandfather back in the '80s.
• I'm obviously a big Tolkien fan ("ash nazg" after all), but I love "The Silmarillion" a million times more than I do LOTR itself. Along with a Daniel Moore print of Alabama's national championship from '92, the key wall decor in my office is my signed print of Ted Nasmith's painting of the city of Gondolin. If anyone can put their hands on any original Nasmith paintings themselves, I can only say my birthday is next week ;-)
  

I reckon I'll pick on these kids in the hall next:
- David Coallier, who eluded my Pick-On-Canadians jokes by moving to Ireland;
- Joe Stump, for taking a far-away trip that has me imagining him walking around asking "whadda we get for ten dollars???";
- Josh Eichorn, because he looks so much like my roommate from my single days that I need some proof they're not the same person;
- Brett Bieber, because SimpleChannelServer can't possibly be requiring any of his time;
- Ken Guest, because he still hasn't sent me any Irish dark chocolate;
- Till Klampaeckel, for starting the "Fans of The Nazg" group on last.fm and putting my country song on the map by playing it on repeat every morning for months;
- Tony Maro, for being the one person I know from the North Alabama Linux Users group (no idea if he flies in from West Virginia for the monthly meetings in Huntsville), and because I know being tagged will result in him finding five more cool apps in the Ubuntu repositories to talk about.

Here are the rules for my taggees:
* Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
* Share seven facts about yourself in the post - some random, some weird.
* Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
* Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.