From FaceBook

FaceBook is the most colossal time sink ever. Recently, friends started posting "25 Random Things About Me" so I thought I'd add my post here.

1. I was conceived in Oak Harbor, Washington, born in Beverly, Massachusetts, and moved to Oxnard, California at age 3 weeks. This was a good indicator of how my life would unfold.

2. I read a minimum of 3 newspapers a day, the New York Times, the regional paper (usually the Miami Herald or Boston Globe) and a really local paper (usually the Portland Herald or Key West Citizen.

3. I eat lunch at a restaurant pretty much every day.

4. I make dinner from scratch almost every night.

5. I go to the grocery store every day.

6. I’ve been married almost 24 years.

7. I’m a certified scuba diver.

8. I’m a very left wing liberal, but I have Republican friends. It kills me that we can’t somehow all come to consensus on the big issues, but people just think differently.

9. I think kindness is more important than love. There are crimes of passion, but none of kindness.

10. I was raised a fundamentalist Christian, but I got over it. I’m more of a Buddhist/Unitarian/Atheist now, but I really like to get into a theological argument with Evangelical Christians. Usually, their hypocrisy and misunderstanding of scripture is breathtaking.

11. I used to do long distance offshore racing in catamaran sailboats, which is really a lot of fun, but the boats are all sold off now.

12. I became absurdly wealthy at age 36, which is profoundly humbling.

13. I lost the vast majority of it at age 40, which is also profoundly humbling.

14. I’ve been on the front page of the Washington Post and USA Today, been featured on the TV show 48 Hours, had a half page opinion piece in the Washington Post published, turned down an offer to do the O’Reilly Factor, lectured at MIT and a lot of other crap, but I still fear my third grade teacher, Mrs. Spaid, is going to walk into the room at any minute, and drag me away by the ear saying, “Why are you bothering these grown-ups?”

15. I relive the worst decisions and mistakes of my life before getting out of bed most mornings.

16. I’m clinically neurotic.

17. I feel paternal toward my nephews and nieces and their spouses, and grandfatherly to their kids.

18. I’m extremely insecure, but I mask it by being loud and outgoing.

19. I fear that I am not a good person and have somehow messed up other peoples’ lives through neglect, incompetence and/or errors in judgment. This actually terrifies me and I find that I attempt to make up for it by writing checks to good causes, over tipping and being kind to random strangers. I wish everyone would, but when I do it, it seems completely inadequate.

20. I went to Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut and learned how to be kind at a co-ed fraternity (we called it a siblinghood) called DKE. I have never before or since felt so supported and loved by so many people in one place at one time, and made it my mission to recreate it at some point in my life. The Sales and Service Departments at UUNET Technologies that I ran in the early and mid 90’s came damn close. Really. I’m proud to be able to say that I got rich off of Socialism.

21. I studied economics in college and am very concerned that many of my fellow citizens don’t realize what an economic shitstorm we are headed into. There will be huge social ramifications as former middle class citizens face real poverty and actual hunger. This will not go through without a tad of social unrest.

22. I love my adopted hometowns of Key Largo, Florida and East Boothbay, Maine, and am honored to be treated as a local in both. Each town is made up of tough individual spirits and a sense of community that always makes me proud. We take care of our own.

23. I hope that the hideous economic collapse that is roaring toward us makes us kinder, more community oriented and kind to neighbors and strangers than we have been. There will be a lot of shared pain, and I so hope we rise to the occasion.

24. My memories are so wonderful that I could die tomorrow and feel like it had been a great ride.

25. I want to take the RV next winter and go back to Mexico, and try to figure out my place in the world.