5 things...
Thanks to Mary-cay I've been tagged, although I'm not sure if a tag from behind the sun's firewall technically counts (hint hint :-)
Kicked the caffeine habit
I've never drank Coffee or Tea (odd being an Englishman) in my life, just never felt the urge. I did have a caffeinated beverage habit. This started while in the UK when friends in the USAF would bring over cases of mountain dew, this contained twice the legal caffeine and sugar permitted in a normal soda drink in the UK. After drinking several in one day I discovered the wonders of a good caffeine buzz. This stuck with me until November of 2004, SevenSpace was being acquired by Sun and I found myself drinking a can (or two) of dew on the way to the office just to jump start my day. I realized I had a problem, and went cold turkey. I've now been on the caffeine free wagon for 2 years (with a couple of lapses thanks to the fine folks at united airlines providing the wrong drink). The headaches for the first few weeks were so bad I was worried I'd end up with an advil habit :-)
Cooking
I really enjoy cooking, especially adventurous dishes with lots of ingredients. I've spent the past year perfecting my own BBQ sauce recipe (based on peaches, Kentucky bourbon and smoked bacon...) this is just about ready for prime time. I'll post the recipe here once perfected.
BMX
In my teen years I really enjoyed BMX (bicycle motocross). I always dreamed of turning professional and riding for Haro. To this day I still cant pass by X-Games on the TV and get nostalgic (or remember the many crashes I had)
Poles and Holes
My entry into computer science was slightly unusual in that I didn't go the traditional route of university but joined British Telecom as a trainee technician. I remember this time fondly due to the wide variety of training provided ranging from "poles and holes" (up telephone poles and in ditches splicing cables) to learning about fetch execute cycles of CPU's.
Redneck at heart.
While a few of the folks from SevenSpace thought of me somewhat as an academic (or more likely, mad professor) I'm at least 50% redneck. Before getting married I spent many hours watching WWF (now WWE) including attending a couple of events in person. I even met the undertaker in Washington DC. On top of that, I also enjoy racing and was in mourning for a year when my driver had a horrific accident (RIP #3). I've just started to follow racing again, my 5 year old son is more of an addict that I ever was.
As is tradition I'm going to tag 5 fellow bloggers. Shawn Ferry [http://blogs.sun.com/yakshaving/], Scott Phillips [http://blogs.sun.com/42/], Stacia Kelly [http://blogs.sun.com/stacia/], Marek Potociar [http://blogs.sun.com/marek/] and Mike Seminaro [this is your excuse to start an (external) blog].
