Five things people don't know about me

There's a challenge meme floating around the tech-blogosphere at the moment, and I have the dubious honor of being tagged twice. Thanks Karen and Jeff - you may see support for your departments slow down a little... Nick Bradbury introduced it into the NewsGator realm, and it has done the rounds. Basically the challenge is to state 5 things that most people wouldn't know about you...

I NEVER pass on chain letters. In fact, even if I totally agree with an email and the last line says "pass this on to every one you know" or "everyone in your contact list", the forward button is off limits to me. In the rare exception that I pass one on to a few select people (I remember it happening twice) that offending line was removed. Email chains are the social viruses of the tech world.

Now my rant is over, I think this is a little different. People can choose to go to my blog, or they can choose to stay away. Anything posted here is not forced upon them, so I don't consider this a chain. And along the meme I've learned some very interesting things about people I admire, so here goes:

1. Unlike Greg, though I'm a little white boy from Wollongong, Australia (just south of Sydney), if you look at my iPod you'll find an inordinate amount of HipHop, Rap and RnB. How on earth I got into the likes of the YinYang twins and Ludacris while growing up in a culture of Grunge and married to a woman who listens to Country, I'll never know.
   
   
2. I play guitar. Though I'm a long way out of practice right now, I used to be the band director at a fairly large Church, and was in a number of Rock bands. I even performed in concerts with crowds of several thousand. But to this day, I get REALLY nervous talking in front of more than about 10 people.
   
   
3. By the time I was a Senior in High-School, I had been in 9 separate car accidents. I was only driving for one of them (some guy ran into the back of me at a traffic light), and NONE of them were the fault of the person in whose car I was in... Damages ranged from 2 deaths to a busted headlight. The worst thing that happened to me personally was 2nd degree burns to my foot that put me in hospital for just over a week when I was 7. (Fortunately I don't carry any scars - physically or emotionally ;>)
   
   
4. The high school I went to was kind of small. My sophomore class had 10 students total. Though with 4 teachers we had a pretty good student-teacher ratio
   
   
5. Broad Australian accents grate on my ears... I know I'm from Australia, and trust me when I say I LOVE it. But when I heard a really strong, country bumpkin, Australian accent (particularly female - sorry ladies) I can't stand it!

So I'm going to try and move this conversation out of the company. I'm going to take 3 former NewsGator Employees: Jack, Mark and James. And let's see if we can get some of our most loyal customers in on this: Critter32 and Spyder, do you feel like playing?? Tag, you're IT!