100

It took me awhile but I finally got 100 things down that you may, or may not, know about me.

1. I consider myself pretty smart and i'm jealous of those individuals that hold the title of 'genius' amongst the general populous.

2. I have NEVER enjoyed dealing with my hair (due to the fact that I was largely unsuccessful in doing so) and so at the first indication that it was starting to thin I shaved it. It was either all or nothing- I don't want pattern baldness so I will never grow my hair out again.

3. I actually know what E=mc2 means almost to the point of being able to explain its significance to somebody.

4. I believe the Star Wars epic and the Matrix trilogy provide rather profound spiritual insights/parallels.

5. Reading Tom Peter's 'The Circle of Innovation' was a pivotal turning point in my life (pivotal...turning...point....is that redundant?)

6. My favorite music groups are U2, R.E.M., and Erasure (not necessarily in that order, but I'd be hard pressed to actually put them in an order)

7. I have compiled (and continue to do so) a soundtrack of my adult life and am collecting songs for the 'Prequel'- the soundtrack of my childhood and adolescence.

8. I am generally not a talkative person unless it's about art.

9. I believe that having an understanding and appreciation for abstract art can lead to profound insights and make you a better person.

10. The artist Chris Burden, famous for a performance art piece entitled 'Shoot' in which he had himself shot in the arm by a friend, has actually helped me understand better Christ's decision, as a man, to die for us.

11. My favorite time period in Art History is the 1960's and 70's.

12. I'm a huge Minimalism fan and feel it is one of the few art movements that I can speak about on a personal level without having to borrow art historical/critical jargon (I've even coined my own phrase in dealing with it- "Minimalists have honed the art of getting it precisely wrong.")

13. My wife says she has never encountered someone who wants to be rich more than me.

14. I decided I needed to be phenomenally wealthy because I love art so much that I would like to collect it. And the art/artists I want to collect have pieces ranging from the hundreds of thousands into the millions- so my desire to be rich is quite simply a logical deduction from something I desire.

15. At one point in high school I had pi memorized out to 44 decimal places.

16. I was on a freshman swimming relay team that beat the freshman school record (we only held that record for a year, though.)

aa/>
17. Those toys that are hinged armatures and make, essentially a ball that expands and contracts- I feel they somehow contain the secret to the universe.

18. I lied to my parents only once, when I was in second or third grade. (and it ate at me until I finally confessed to my mother about two years ago.)

19. I can point to two, specific pivotal moments in my development as an artist. One was a Picasso exhibit I saw during my sophomore year in college and the other was my first absract painting in my Painting I class my junior year. See me if you would like further details.

20. OK- maybe a third pivotal art moment- but this is in relationship to my ability to draw, not necessarily my development as an artist (Yes- there is a distinction). I owe my ability to draw (aside from God's gift...) to the purchase of "How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way".

21. I don't have a problem, but I have wet the bed three times over the course of my ten year marriage (I was very, very, very, very, very, tired. And I've discovered that dreaming of going to the bathroom is usually connected with the physical act. Though I've never read it, I doubt this insight is in Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams.")

22. I arrange the keys on my key ring so that all the teeth are facing the same direction.

23. My favorite birthday/Christmas gifts that my wife has given me are: a Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament), an air compressor, and a trip to New York to see the Jackson Pollock retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art.

24. I really don't like Thomas Kincaid's paintings.

25. I feel that art can play a role in a worship setting that is beyond mere illustration.

26. I'm intensely interested in Quantum Physics.

27. I have travelled abroad to the following locations: London, England; Paris, France; Prague, Czechoslovakia; Berlin, Germany; Moscow, Russia; Florence, Rome, Venice, Pisa, Sienna, San Gimignano, Lake Como, Milan- all in Italy; Salzburg & Vienna, Austria; Interlachen, Switzerland; Zagreb & Rab, Croatia.

28. Melinda & I moved cross country 3 times within our first 4 years of marriage.

29. I actually bought a Swiss Army Knife in Switzerland.

30. Despite me desire to be wealthy I actually walked away from a job (where I would have been making a pretty substantial salary within a couple of years) in part because I did not want to feel 'stuck' in a job that I didn't enjoy with a nice paycheck. Money isn't everything- in fact it's very little in most cases.

31. I love the idea of blogging, but honestly I often feel guilty spending the time to do so.

32. I'm generally a brand loyalist-once I find a product/brand that I like, I stick with it.

33. With the exception of books, I'm a sucker for packaging- I like the 'Special Editions'. But with books I pride myself on concentrating on the ideas inside rather than the cover outside.

34. I often pick up on the speech and mannerisms of close friends about a year or two after we've met or spent considerable time with each other.

35. The actor Ed Harris gave me his personal home phone number.

36. I want very badly to be a wine connoiseur.

37. When I sing, I often find the notes more by the feeling in my throat rather than with my hearing.

38. Looking back I can think of only two regrets- things I would try differently were I in the same time/place again- both are from High School: for two years I participated in 'Mock Trial' where we simulated a court case and competed against other schools. The first year I played the role of a witness. The second year I had every intention of portraying a lawyer but I succumbed to praise of my role as a witness and so I played a witness, again. Should've tried being a lawyer. The second was that I never felt I tried hard enough on the swim team- I could've have been much faster.

39. There is a current ongoing debate regarding Hell- one camp views it as eternal suffering, the other camp as a 'second death'/total lack of existence. Due to a dream I had where I actually felt my existence was at stake- i.e. not just physically dying but having any trace of my existence, including your memories of me, completely gone- I side with the latter.

40. My favorite food is spaghetti.

41. I watch cooking shows because I love to watch them cut things- they're so fast yet so precise.

42. My first path toward wealth will involve real estate- most likely rental property.

43. I'm currently doing a lot of reading on investing in businesses and stocks- hoping that I'll have my strategy down and some money in my pocket by the time of the next market crash (which I believe could happen in the next 3 to 5 years), then everything will be marvelously cheap!

44. I love Sourdough bread (with butter- that's key).

45. I have the innate capacity to listen to the same music over and over and over and over again (in fact I'm probably the only person in America who did not get tired of hearing 'Closing Time' by Semisonic.)

46. I hoard images- I probably have close to 2000 pictures of paintings, drawings and sculptures saved on my computer.

47. I like cigars.

48. Jessica Rivera, who is making a name for herself on the international opera scene, sang at our wedding.

49. I worked at Ben & Jerry's briefly while in college and served ice cream to 'J.R. Ewing' (from TV's 'Dallas'), Danny Devito & Rhea Pearlman, Nick Nolte, Linda Hamilton, Larry from 'Night Court', Carey Elwes and Jon Lovitz.

50. I never wanted or intended to be a 'Macintosh snob' but apparently I can't help it. (I think it's a combination of my brand loyalty-ness and my being a sucker for packaging.)

51. I think Disney/Pixar's short 'The Game' is one of the most brilliant things I've ever seen.

52. I currently have about 800 feet of barbed wire hanging on a wall at my house. (It's Art, Man!)

53. The artist Robert Irwin has deeply affected my thinking about the nature of art.

54. The most memorable and perhaps impactful advice on art that Joe Piasentin (one of my professors at Pepperdine) said to me was in a dream (so in actuality he didn't really say it to me)

55. When I was a child I had a recurring dream that something was coming after me and the faster I tried to run, the more slowly my body moved, as if I was trudging waist deep in a thick vat of molasses.

56. When I was about four, I drank the 'paint water' with which you clean your brushes when you're watercoloring. (I just didn't know what I was supposed to do with it when I was done)

57. In high school my friends and I joined a few clubs for the sole purpose of seeing how many times we could get our picture in the yearbook.

58. I played goalie for my high school water polo team and even sat the bench for a year for Pepperdine University.

59. I used to draw the same things over and over and over again. For awhile it was the cab to a semi-truck (that looked remarkably similar to the one from the TV show 'B.J. and the Bear') and then I switched to an ATC- where I meticulously would draw each and every tire tread 'knob'.

60. My ambition in Jr. High was to be a comic book artist.

61. I consider myself to be a-political; I really could care less about who supports what issue and who's running for what office. It just does not interest me. (Though in terms of history, I enjoy watching how political people and their maneuverings affected certain events.)

62. I'm a Harry Potter fan.

63. Favorite movies: Star Wars Epic (considered as one film), Matrix trilogy (again, I make no subdivision), Good Will Hunting, Dead Poets Society, and Shawshank Redemption.

64. I used to want to be an F-16 fighter pilot.

65. I have dabbled in writing song lyrics/poetry

66. Though I have long wanted to, I have yet to read the Bible all the way through. (I'm currently working on it, though.)

67. Calvin and Hobbes is probably the most brillian comic strip ever written.

68. I was a very picky eater as a child but I've since grown out of it.

69. I don't like beans (but I can at least tolerate them now.)

70. On our honeymoon I called my wife from the bathroom simply because there was a phone installed by the toilet.

71. When I was little I used to pull all of my toys out of the toy box and then climb in and pretend I was either in an X-Wing Fighter from Star Wars or in one of those ships from Battlestar Galactica.

72. I'm not superstitious- except I did notice that while I was working as a furniture salesman, if I wore my red pair of underwear I wouldn't sell anything, so I stopped wearing those to work.

73. I'm only sexist about one thing: driving. Other than that I'm fine with women taking over the world.

74. I'm a closet Madonna fan.

75. Favorite smells: Wood, freshly cut grass, and [censored].

76. I used to pretend to be Wonder Woman. My brother got really worried about me.

77. I'm a sucker for Planet Hollywood and Hard Rock.

78. I was lucky enough to visit the original Hard Rock Cafe in London, England on their anniversary day (June 14)- so everything on the menu was at the original 1971 prices.

79. I had 11 girlfriends in the 1st grade (all at the same time). It is chronicled in an essay I wrote at that time called "My Life with Girlfriends" (I believe my mom still has it)

80. I love Oreos.

81. I actually have a fondness for quilts and would like to collect them someday.

82. The first concert I ever went to was in my freshman year in college. It was the U2 Zoo TV Outside Broadcast Tour at Dodger Stadium on Halloween, 1992. I had a very good seat.

83. I would like to be cremated and my remains incorporated into some form of artwork- sort of a 'postmortem self-portrait.'

84. I've only been in one real fight. In the 4th grade- I sorta lost (because I was being too nice because I didn't want to kill the guy.)

85. I was born in San Bernardino, CA- which I consider to be the armpit of California.

86. I convinced my wife to walk down to Star Wars music for our wedding.

87. When I was about 4 years old I walked around with a pillow case tied to a string pretending it to be my dog. Mom finally took pity on me, took me to the toy store and laid out an array of cute stuffed animal dogs- from which I picked an ugly, gray bulldog I named Tom.

88. If I were stranded on a desert island with only one beverage, it would probably be Cherry Coke.

89. I have Elton John's and Bernie Taupin's autographs on two CDs.

90. I had grand visions for my wedding that included a fog machine and people in tights and rollerblades rolling ('floating') around tossing roses into the crowd. My wife nixed this idea but, for a guy, I stayed unusually involved in the decision making process for our wedding.

91. I would love to have an orchestra follow me around and provide a soundtrack for my life.

92. It's not about me.
It's not about me.
It's not about me.
It's not about me.
It's not about me.
It's not about me.
It's not about me.
It's not about me.

93. I'm married to the most wonderful woman in the world.

94. During my freshman year in high school, I ate the same sandwich everyday for lunch (ham, american cheese, mustard, Thousand Island dressing, and pickles on wheat bread.)

95. I pick my nose.

96. I sleep in the nude.

97. In high school I had a recurring dream where I was half awake, so I was aware I was in my bed in my room, but dreaming that there were several people from school in my room and since I wasn't wearing anything I constantly had to keep the covers on, and I was so hot and sweating, but I had to keep the covers on... why couldn't these people leave my room?! Very frustrating.

98. I (try) to read to my wife and my children every night.

99. I actually like the taste of NyQuil.

100. Despite having skateboarded throughout jr. high and high school, I never broke a bone until I was 31 years old.