My blogging buddy, Eric Mack has “tagged me.” This means that I now have to reveal “Five Things You May Not Know About Me.”

When I am done, I then have to tag five of my blogger friends, who get to repeat the cycle with five of their friends. I guess it’s kind of a networking, traffic-building kind of a thing.

Here’s my list:

1. I play the guitar, piano, and bass guitar. My parents had me start piano lessons when I was five. I really didn’t enjoy playing very much until about the ninth grade. Suddenly, I wasn’t just a piano player anymore. I was a budding rock-and-roll keyboardist. That made all the difference in terms of my motivation.

About this same time, I took up guitar. My parents also gave me lessons. I started with classical guitar and then, of course, started playing electric guitar. I loved Crosby, Stills, Nash, and (sometimes) Young, so I also kept playing acoustic guitar. When I went to college, I joined the stage band and learned to play bass.

Unfortunately, I don’t play much any more. However, Gail and I just bought a new piano, so I am playing a little here and there. Man, am I out of practice!

2. I can write Visual Basic, HTML, and AppleScript code. I taught myself how to program with WordBasic as a way of automating repetitive tasks. From that I graduated to Visual Basic.

In the early 90s, I wrote several programs in my spare time and even sold a few on the Web when that hit in the late 90s. That’s when I learned how difficult customer service is.

Along the way, I also learned HTML and, when I converted to the Mac, AppleScript. I’ve never had a formal class in programming, but I can pretty much hack my way to a solution, as long as I can Google the answer.

3. I have written—and had published—a novel. This was one of the most difficult projects I ever completed. I thought it was going to kill me. I had written two nonfiction books before attempting the novel. Both had been fairly successful, so I thought, How hard can a novel be?

Boy, was I wrong. It was ten times as difficult. The book was called Y2K: The Day the World Shut Down. (Yea, I’m that guy.) Mercifully, it’s now out of print. I wasn’t that pleased with the effort, even though it ended up on the CBA bestsellers list for four months. Regardless, it gave me a huge respect for novelists.

4. I am an amateur photographer. My wife, Gail, bought me a Canon Digital Rebel XT a year-and-a-half ago for my birthday. I loved it. It’s one of the best gifts I have ever received.

I got the camera a week before we went to Scotland on a vacation, so I put it to good use during the trip—and drove my family crazy by constantly taking pictures.

Since that time, I have shot a couple of weddings, a few baptisms, and various other projects. I even took an all-day course called Adobe Photoshop for Digital Photographers sponsored by NAPP.

5. I have five daughters and two grand daughters. I like to tell people, “I live in an estrogen-rich environment.” If I seem to be out-of-sorts or off-kilter, it may be because I suffer from estrogen poisoning!

Fortunately, I now have two great sons-in-law, Nathan and Chris. We are going to attend the Wild at Heart Boot Camp in August. This will be an estrogen-free zone where we can nurse our poor male egos back to health. (Actually, I can’t complain. My wife and girls are the joy of my life. I’m totally spoiled rotten.)

Okay, so that’s my list. Now I’m going to tag: Mark Whitlock, Jim Thomason, Greg Stielstra, Wayne Hastings, and Larry Downs. These are five of our more active Thomas Nelson bloggers. Their mission, should they accept it, is to provide their own unique list of five things and then tag five other bloggers.

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