I'm having a birthday, shout hurray! Won't you sing to me today?

So today is the day that 31 years ago at 2:25 p.m PDT my mother Susan gave birth to me. The first born. The first boy. And the first headache that she had to deal with. So in honor of this most joyous of days, I submit for your reading pleasure 31 things that you may not know about The Donald. It was not easy coming up with 31 things. Well, that is until I got to the end, and all these ideas started to pop up in my head. But I stuck with what I had, and I think it will be entertaining to say the least.

First up are some pics of me from childhood, and on up to High School.

Here is the paper proving that I was born, my birth certificate.

Next we have a picture of me with my Mum. She guesses that I was around 5 months old. She was pretty stoked that I found a pic to use that shows what a skinny hottie she was then.
My 1st birthday with my very own birthday cake!

2 years old, and living out in West Richland. Ahh...my 3rd birthday with a cookie monster cake. My uncle Brian and my sis Heidi were there to share. Birthday number 5!! And what do you know? Another Sesame street cake!
And here I am in the 4th grade. Don't you love those shadow pic shots? 6th grade. Still skinny as a bean pole.
Freshman year ASB card. Senior Year Prom, 1996. I took Andrea Leach. She is now a Seattle Seahawks cheerleader. Well, for the past 2 years anyway. I haven't heard if she is doing it again this year.
Here is Lisa and I in our engagement pics.

Getting ready for my 10 year High School reunion, 2006.
And a picture of me and Lorelai standing next to sweet Elisabeth when she is a day old.

I hope you enjoyed all the pics. Now that you have been patient, you are ready to be treated to my list. Here ya go!

1. I like to get pedicures. Nothing like getting some strange woman you don’t know massaging your feet. In fact, I should get one for my birthday. It has been too long since my last one.

2. I like to get manicures too. Say what you will, but number 1 and 2 are livin’ it up in my book. Don’t knock it before you try it.

3. I was (and still kind of am) the worst nose picker…EVER! As the comment my Mom made on my memory blog yesterday indicates, I had an addiction. I would go to the bathroom during elementary school just so I could pick in peace. During my first basketball game as a youth, I spend the game running up and down the court with only my left hand free.

4. I was so paranoid when I was younger, (and once again, still guilty) of going bald. I called hair club for men when I was 16, but they told me that until I actually started to lose it, there wasn’t much they could do for me. Around the age of 22, I came to the conclusion that when men lose their hair, it starts growing out their ears. So I started to pluck any maverick hairs that sprouted out of my ears. Hey, I still have a good head of hair. I must be doing something right.

5. I used to have one of the worst potty mouths in the country. I would have made a Marine Drill Sergeant blush. The bad word that I wouldn’t use was the lord’s name in vain. But swearing like that stopped being fun when I was around 18. Now swear words only escape my lips when some bonehead does something stupid in traffic. For the most part I have adopted made up swear words…some of which I have learned from my father.

6. I have lived in Kennewick practically my whole life. I had a couple stints in Richland and West Richland when I was a kid, but my parents wised up and moved to Kennewick when I was 3.

7. My first car was a 1993 Geo Prism. I purchased it when I turned 20 years old, and I paid for it myself. No help from anyone.

8. I didn’t get my driver’s license until I was 19. My parents told me that if I was to get it earlier than that, I had to pay for my own insurance. Since all of my friends drove, I saw no need to get one until I really needed it. I just bummed rides off of them.

9. I think that whatever I try to do, I should be able to do it right the first time. If I don’t get it right, I get frustrated, but that doesn’t stop me from trying. I will work at it until I have perfected it. Unfortunately, my daughter Alexandra received this trait from me. I never knew what a pain in the butt I could be until I experienced it with my own children.

10. My Mom blogged about this a while back, but I need to come up with 31 items, so I will use it anyway. I never had to learn how to ride a bike. I just hopped on one when I was 5 and took off. My friend Chris would trade me his bike for my Spiderman big wheel, and we would each have a great time.

11. Out of the 7 BMX bikes I had as a kid, 4 of them were stolen, and two of them I cracked the frame. I think the bike gods were trying to pay me back for never having to struggle to learn how to ride. That or I just lived in a crappy neighborhood.

12. I am by no means a dumb person, but I received horrible grades in school. I did not like to do assignments or homework for that matter. I would ace pretty much all of my tests, but since a big part of the education world is actually turning IN assignments, my grades were that of a loser who was one F away from dropping out of school. This caused great angst for both my teachers and my mother.

13. I love numbers, and am pretty good with them.

14. When I was younger, all I wanted to be was a stockbroker or an accountant.

15. I almost joined the Army when I was 18. I was all signed up, and I was going to be an accountant for them. (Well, I guess I would have been a bomb counter or something like that, but it would work up to accounting) But when I ended up a ½ credit short from graduating, they tore up my contract. I then decided that it wasn’t for me.

16. I have a pretty good memory for almost everything. I can remember little details that others forget, and then don’t believe me when I tell them. If there is one thing I have a hard time with is remembering names. Faces I am money with, names…not so much.

17. When I was in high school, (and several years out of it) I could dunk a basketball. Not too shabby considering I am only 5’ 8”. My hands weren’t big enough to go up with the ball, so I would have to bounce it a la Spud Webb, or have someone throw it up to me. I still have the hops, but going up with around 190 lbs on my frame is a little harder than going up with 150.

18. Speaking of weight, I didn’t break the 100 lb. barrier until half way through my freshman year.

19. I knew that I was going to marry Lisa before we even met in person. She knew it too.

20. When it comes to music, I have a diverse collection. About the only kind of music that I don’t care for is country, and I even have some of that. Mostly Garth Brooks, since he can actually sing w/o doing the annoying twang sound. Don’t believe me? Give his rendition of Kiss’s classic “Hard Luck Woman” a listen. You won’t even believe it is him singing. Music loving just runs in the family I guess.

21. I have had to be stitched and/or stapled up 6 times, and have broken my wrist too. I and the emergency room were practically on a first name basis when I was a kid. I also had a concussion once when I closed my eyes to ride my Uncle Brian’s bike down a hill in Des Moines, and ran into a car’s side view mirror.

22. Between the ages of 16 and 21, I lived in my parent’s back yard in a playhouse that they never finished for me and my siblings. I actually started to sleep out there as early as 14 years old during the summertime. For the first few years, the only covering I had was an old blanket that I had nailed up as a roof. My senior year in HS I added wooden sides and a wooden roof. Out there I had my bed, a TV, a VCR, and an old couch. My electricity came from an extension cord that was hooked up around the side of the house. I would stay out there until around late October, when it would be too cold to sleep anymore, and I would move back into the house. My friends referred to it as the pimp pad. Since one of my favorite books as a kid was My Side of the Mountain, I always wanted to live out in the woods some place like that. My backyard was close enough.

23. I have been into two fist fights in my life. They both happened before 12 years of age. One was when I was 5 years old, and I was forced into fighting a kid named Bobby Petty. I won the fight when I hit him in the mouth and made his lip bleed. He was up on the crotch kick scorecard, but because of the blood he ran home. The next fight was in 5th grade with a kid named Michael. We were out on the playground playing soccer when I hit him with the ball. He tried to punch me, and then I punched him back. He ran off crying. After recess they called me to the office where is parents were, and his dad said he was going to whip me. I was so scared. I guess I should also mention that when this kid tried to fight me, he had a broken arm. I don’t know why he started something with a broken wing, but that did not stop me from saying my fight record was a perfect 2-0. And like I said, that is the last fight I have ever been in. (Although there have been other times I was close)

24. After Lisa and I were married for about a year, I started to gain weight…FAST. I was around 175 when we first were married, and by 2002 I was up to about 225. I would get tired tying my shoes. One day one of my co-workers (The one that I egged his car. If you don’t know about that, you missed this long post!) told me that I was fat, and that I needed to stop pigging out. It hit me really hard, and I started to lose weight. I was then laid off from work about 3 months after that, and with no money for food, I soon started to drop the weight. By the time I went back to work 9 months later, I had lost 40 pounds.

25. Ribs are my favorite form of meat. I especially love baby back ribs.

26. I am left handed, but shoot a basketball with my right hand.

27. My first car, the 1993 Geo Prizm, was stolen on Valentine’s Day, 1998. I have my suspicions on who stole it, but never any concrete proof. It was found in the Rancho Riata area and was totally trashed.

28. I hate olives. Green, black, purple, orange, it doesn’t matter what color they are, they are all disgusting.

29. When I was 14, I shot myself in the hand with a BB gun. On purpose. Now that story would make a good blog. I will keep it in mind.

30. I didn’t fly on an airplane until I was 22. It was to go down and meet Lisa’s family for the first time in June of 1999. The first leg of the trip, I spilled my coke into my lap, and for the rest of the flight I had to sit in a puddle of soda. I stained my shorts, but Lisa told me that you couldn’t notice. When we arrived at LAX, I went into the bathroom and saw that my bride to be had fibbed a little. Actually, a lot. The whole seat of my pants were brown. And the next few flights we made down there, Holly (my MIL) would tell me to be careful with my drink.

31. Last but not least, I love my family more than anything in the world. More than the Aerosmith concert that I had floor seats for in 1998, more than playing sports, and even more than Disneyland. I would not be where I am today without my wife and best friend Lisa.

I hope you enjoyed the pics and the 31 facts about me. The list could have gone on and on, but I am only 31 after all! Thanks for reading, and have a great day thinking about me on my birthday.