I already posted this list to my Facebook account earlier in the week (with a few minor variations), so I thought I may as well post it here.
1. When I was just three weeks old, my older brother, Mike, hit me over the head with a wooden mallet. That should explain a lot.
2. I would rather have a pet rock than a pet fish. Above all other pets, I love dogs. Unlike humans, they have never said a cross word to me. My golden retriever, Rolley - who died last year at the age of 14 - was one of my best friends, and I still think about her and miss her most every day.
3. According to imdb.com, I have seen and rated over 4,400 TV episodes, movies, and video games. Yes, I have a lot of spare time on my hands.
4. I have been tested for allergies and have learned that I am allergic to about a third of the things floating around in Utah's air.
5. Though I have not come close to scoring a perfect 300 in bowling, I (according to my instructor) achieved the first perfect score - 25 out of 25 - on the written test final for my bowling class at the University of Utah.
6. Though I have never been a great basketball player, I am proud of a few accomplishments. For example, I once hit an estimated 75-foot shot to beat the buzzer in a church basketball game. My career high in a game is 14 points. I once grabbed 10 rebounds in a five-minute stretch of a game. I wear jersey number 31, when possible, because it was the same number worn by Utah Jazz player Adam Keefe, whose hustle play I admired a lot.
7. Though I have participated in all kinds of theater and have done a lot of public speaking, I was once in speech therapy, because I couldn't talk well.
8. I once sang a solo at an Institute choir concert, and, for my own sake and my audience's, I will never do it again. I also once won a karaoke contest by singing Elvis Presley's "(Let Me Be) Your Teddy Bear."
9. I taught myself to play the zampoña (pan flute), which I picked up in Peru, and, with it, played a duet of Simon & Garfunkel's 'El Condor Pasa (If I Could)" at a ward talent show. Ben backed me up on the guitar.
10. In the third grade, I played the black child in my school play, "The Safety Kids."
11. I am afraid of heights, marionettes, clowns, haunted houses, and the number 26.
12. There are 15 days' worth of MP3s on my computer.
13. I still have a box full of Garbage Pail Kids cards, but I doubt they're worth the paper on which they are printed.
14. In 2009, I will receive credit for co-authoring a book.
15. If I were a superhero, my "kryptonite" would be talking to girls on the telephone.
16. I have lived through multiple earthquakes, a hurricane, and a flood. I was out of the country when the Salt Lake tornado went through downtown SLC and next to my workplace, or I would have lived through that, too.
17. My two favorite NBA teams are the Utah Jazz and whoever plays the Los Angeles Lakers.
18. I have never been pulled over by a cop, let alone been given a ticket.
19. I may very well have met one of the Three Nephites in the middle of nowhere near Island Park, Idaho, when I was 15.
20. I once flew all the way to Georgia just to attend a "Weird Al" Yankovic concert with Clayton. It was worth it.
21. I have been cast in four TV commercials.
22. I have to use my thumb and pinky to be able to snap my fingers. I can't do it any other way.
23. I saw
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace seven times and
Jurassic Park four times in theaters. Yes, I'm a nerd.
24. I once volunteered at an elementary school and taught a classroom full of sixth graders to dance the disco hustle.
25. Though I have never dyed my hair, I have had red, blond, and brown (auburn?) hair.
