5 Things You May Not Know About Me

OK, I've been tagged a couple of times now and ignored it but maybe the only way to stop this tagging nonsense is to post something. For those of you fortunate enough to not know about tagging, basically a tagged blogger is supposed to post 5 things the reader probably doesn't know about the blogger. You're also supposed to tag some other bloggers. I'll come up with five things, but I'm not tagging anybody else. Also, since I like to keep this blog focused on bikes, all five things involve bikes.

1) When I was a little kid I had these really cool grips on my bike that I thought were Tony the Tiger grips, but actually they were part of the Exxon "tiger in your tank" promotion. Somehow Exxon's marketing didn't sway me strongly and even though they made 4.5 million dollars every day of last year, very little of that money came from me. But I probably did buy some snacks at their gas stations.

2) When I was a kid I told one of my young chums that one day I'd ride my bicycle to California. He said "you can't bike to California, it's too far." I thought he was a dope and told him so. We were no longer chums after that.

3) In 1982 I took my last exams, got a degree in philosophy, skipped graduation and rode my bicycle from Minnesota to California in 21 days. It wasn't too far.

4) While sitting on the beach in Crescent City, California, I spent a good bit of time thinking about things I'd left undone in Minnesota. There was really only one thing that bugged me, but it bugged me quite a bit. I rode north and west, and ran out of money in Bend, Oregon. I went into a bike shop, hocked my bike for money for food and bus fare back to Minnesota.

5) Back in Minnesota, I got my old computer job back and finally screwed up my courage to ask out the pretty girl who worked as a receptionist for the accountants down the hall. Not even talking to her was the one thing that had really bugged me. I left a poem on her desk and then introduced myself and asked her out. Remarkably, she said yes. Her name is Christine and she's the love of my life. She's even more beautiful now than she was in 1982 (and she was quite a babe back then). My wife is still camera shy but she let me take a picture of her while we were having tea this week.


And BTW, I did earn enough money to get my bike out of hock.