What is so magic about fives in the networked world?  I have a friend who sends me these goofy, smarmy chain emails, about all the wonderful ways some group we identify with is special (women or dog lovers or Californians), and they always end with "Send this to five people you know and good things will happen for you."  Right.

So it goes with tag on five things most people don't know about me.  And Terry McKenzie needed to tag five people, so my turn -- something to help pull me back after 6 weeks offs from blogging.  Hopefully I can stay away from the too syrupy stuff.

1. I've lived in a house with no plumbing or electricity.  As kids, we were shipped to Arkansas to spend the summers with my paternal grandparents, who were hillbilly cotton farmers.  They had no indoor plumbing, no electricity, chewed tobacco (including Granny), and scrapped a living (barely) on 80 acres. 
2. My parents taught me to play bridge when I was four years old, so I'm a halfway decent bridge player.  If I'm in town, I play on Friday nights with a regular partner at a local bridge club, and compete in tournaments across the country 2-3 times a year.  I've played against Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Omar Shariff.  (And won, or as we say in duplicate bridge, took points off them.  But in all fairness, when the first two were new players years ago.)
3. Give me a task such as backing up a car with a trailer, or figuring out the best way to load a trunk, and I start drooling.  In other words, I'm idiotic at spatial intelligence.  It's one reason I buy into Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, and believe that our measurements of general intelligence are woefully inadequate, implicitly biased, and cause more harm than good.  Dont' get me started.
   
4. My first full-time job was second shift in a plastics factory while in college, but after that, I didn't work full time until I was 32, taking time off to raise small children.  I've probably over-compensated since then, feeling like I fell behind 10 years in career progression.
5. So, we'll soon see how many people read this far.  I'm a huge believer in giving back to the community, so I almost always support people raising funds through their participation in activities such as Team in Training -- reputable NGOs where people have a demonstrated commitment to personally participate.  Just ask.

Now it's my chance to tag five people --
Charles Beckham -- the SLS amazing chief technologist.