One For Truth

Tag, I'm It Part One

Well, there's apparently a tradition in blog circles of answering some personal questions and then forwarding the list to several others (aka "tagging" them). Ninjanun has tagged me on one of these, so I thought I'd knock it out before I leave town for a conference.

My life, 10 years ago
Single and 30, I was just on the precipice of my new age wanderings. I had attended a weekend personal growth seminar and was about to leave on a weeklong second phase of it, where we went through lots of exercises that were intended to shake up our world, and they did... I remember one in particular where we had to stand in front of every other attendee and classify them as a "giver" or a "taker" based upon their experiences with me. I was floored at how many people considered me a taker.

A few months later, I would move to the hills above Los Angeles to share a house with a gay roommate. It had a patio above the garage, but since my roommate was gay we called it a "lanai."

5 years ago
Mrs. Zeke and I had been married for nearly a year and had been in our current home since the spring. Money was good--very good--and we were treating ourselves to nice things for the first time in our relationship. We had taken a three week summer vacation, and I bought a Suburban to haul the family and a friend of Missy's across country to visit our pastor friend in Louisiana. A few months later, the tech market crashed and we kept our business on life support until September 11th, when it got killed deader than a possum on the Interstate.

1 year ago
Missy started college early at 17. Erica, our semi-adopted daughter, is pregnant and her Marine husband is getting ready to ship off to Iraq. After he leaves, we take care of her until she delivers. I held the video camera in such a way as to catch the birth without filming... well, unnecessary detail. Afterwards, we have a new baby in our home until Marine Joey returns safely from Iraq. Jackie, who has been living with us since she was 16, gets pregnant after having been kicked out, moves back in, and has a terrible miscarriage. Her baby's lower half came out the birth canal while she was in the bathroom with cramps. I waited for the paramedics to come while she cried, terrified and wounded. Before long she went back to her old ways, and I just recently had to ask her to leave again.

Yesterday
I flew to San Jose to visit a customer in the Salinas valley that we are bidding a lighting retrofit project for. My contact, a Stanford MBA grad, talked over lunch what it was like to move from Palo Alto and live a single guy's life in agro country. Our lighting designer and I talked on the way back; he's getting a divorce. Last time he and I talked family I thought they were doing fine.

5 snacks I enjoy
Hershey's kisses, Baked Lay's (Original and Sour Cream & Cheddar), chips & salsa, pretzels, and beer.

5 songs I know all the words to
None without hearing them, but I know the bass lines to every song on Permanent Waves.

5 things I'd do with 100 million dollars
1. Split it into 5 groups of 20 million:
-one for charity
-one for family
-another for charity
-one for... charity
-and one more for charity.
2. With the charity money, establish a foundation and put Dorsey, Steve, Josh, and Ninjanun on the Board just for giggles. No salary, guys--this is charity work.
3. With the family money, I would:
3.5. Pay off all debts and give our duplex to our beloved friend Veronica.
4. Take a ridiculously long vacation, driving across the country in an absurdly opulent motor home with Mrs. Zeke, our dogs, Missy and her beloved Cockatoo. On the drive, scope out and buy the land on which we will build our dream home, where we will grow old and die.
5. Move my mom and dad to wherever they wanted to go, even if its right in our home with us. Give a nice chunk of change to close relatives, too.

to be continued...

posted by Zeke @ 5:16 PM