A Meme

Meme-
NOUN:
A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another.

ETYMOLOGY:
Shortening (modeled on gene), of mimeme from Greek mimma, something imitated, from mimeisthai, to imitate.

The other day I received an e-mail from my pal DI over at at the Defiant Infidel blog. I eagerly opened it, thinking that it perhaps contained one of his famous well written missives or perhaps a few of his entertaining pictures. What I found when I opened it instead was DI tagging me with a meme.

This is the first time I've been tagged with a meme in all the years that I've been blogging. This particular meme asks me to share 8 random "factoids" about myself then tag five others with the meme.

In DI's response to the meme he and his co-blogger Dena addressed the following 8 factoids:

1.) Home
2.) Dogs
3.) Fears
4.) Pet Peeves
5.) Movies
6.) Hobbies
7.) Odd Food Preferences
8.) Political Concerns

I thought this a good list of topics and decided to plagiarize it and issue my own set of responses. So here goes:

HOME

I grew up mainly on a dairy farm in south central Pennsylvania, but when my father became disgruntled with the new owners of the farm we began a process of moving around from place to place. At an early age (17) I joined the Army and the vagabond lifestyle continued. Then I adopted software development as my career and it by its very nature requires one to move frequently. Therefore I have no single place that has so seized my imagination enough to make me call it home. Home to me is my family. Where they are, I am at home. I suppose at some point I will eventually find some spot on this planet that makes me want to stay there, but so far none has leaped out. I suppose there is Northern Idaho. When I first descended into the valley that contains Lake Coeur d' Alene I was taken with it's beauty and ever since then I've thought about eventually retiring there. Then there's Alaska. It's always captured my imagination. I remember being a kid in elementary school and our teacher told us about Alaska and how people could still homestead land there. The idea of a place still being so wild really got it wedged in my mind. I'm drawn by something inside me to the wild places of the earth and as the last great frontier in this nation; Alaska has a certain allure.



DOGS

There are few things that have enriched my life like having a dog in it. As a child I grew up with mainly large dogs (German Shephards, Collies, St. Bernards, Dobermans). I loved every one of them. But, as I've grown older and have taken up the previously mentioned vagabond lifestyle I have by necessity moved over to small dogs. It's just easier to find rental places that will allow you to keep a small dog than it is to find a place that allows you to keep large dogs and with all of the moving around, who wants to buy? My first wife was pretty much anti-animal. So that precluded the ownership of any kind of animal. Mainly because she would find a way to use anything that brought you joy as a weapon to cause pain. My current wife however is fixated on dogs. She brought with her a love of poodles, but as far as she's concerned any dog'll do. So while we were wandering through a pet shop in Montana we happened upon an odd little white fluff ball. Well it turns out that it was a Miniature American Eskimo. Bianca came home with us immediately after licking my wife's nose because after all, "how could she put it back down after that?" Since then, we've added Priscilla a poodle/bischon mix and after the much rued death of our teacup poodle Coal we rescued another American Eskimo named Vivian from a puppy mill that had gotten closed down.



FEARS

I try to eject all fear from my life. Nothing irks me more than surrendering control of my life and that is precisely what fear is. I suppose there will always be fear of something in your life, but I do try to rid myself of all phobias. I fear being unable to protect my loved ones from harm. I fear the things that are outside of my control, like the direction the country is being taken in.

PET PEEVES

I have many pet peeves. It drives me nuts when someone is driving slow enough to make you slip into the passing lane and then once there, the idiot speeds up so you can't pass them. That drives me nuts. Inefficiency drives my crazy. I hate looking at an inefficient practice or something that wastes time. I also hate people that just sit on their asses and scream at their kids. Look fat ass, your kid knows that you're too lazy to get up and make them listen so screaming only serves to annoy me!

MOVIES

I have a saying about movies. If a movie has guns and explosions, who needs a plot? That should pretty much cue you in to my movie preferences. I enjoy action movies and war movies. I also like science fiction and some select comedies. For example I hated Rocky Horror but absolutely loved Clerks II (my favorite comedy of all time).



HOBBIES

Honestly said, I have too many hobbies, but I'm the type whose mind doesn't shut down. I get bored very easily. So I get into a lot of odd things. I like astronomy, electronics, robotics, writing music, playing guitar, computer programming, blogging, writing in general, hunting, shooting, medieval reenactment, armoursmithing and general tinkering. The list goes on from there, but you get the general gist of it.



ODD FOOD PREFERENCES

I have no odd food preferences. In fact, I prefer very much to stay with the tried and true. Everyone is always trying to shove some odd thing or another onto my plate but the days of being forced to eat whatever was placed in front of me ended when I left my father's home. Beyond that a number of allergies tend to limit my adventurousness. I'm allergic to garlic and mushrooms. The mushrooms are no big loss, but I do love the taste of garlic and it is an allergy that has suddenly appeared with a vengeance. I can't even endure the scent of garlic. I also am very anti-sea food. The number of aquatic critters I'll eat is very limited. I just don't like the taste.

POLITICAL CONCERNS

Well I have many. Mainly I rue the great distance we have traveled from the intents of the founding fathers. I see a nation that is growing more and more divided. The chasm between us is growing wider and deeper and nothing seems to bridge the gap. Not even the devastation that was wrought on 9/11 was enough to heal the gash for very long at all. We seemed to close in, shake hands and then immediately return to our battle lines. There was a time when being Americans united us as a folk enough that the disagreements remained at the very least congenial. These days the traded barbs are growing less and less civil as time passes and I fear it is only a matter of time until it truly comes to blows. It also seems as though there is no real party to represent the people any more. Both of the political parties represent only their own vested interests. For example, neither party would dare consider tackling term limits, true election fraud prevention or limits on lobbying no matter how much popular support there is for such things. It seems like the parties are fomenting this loss of congeniality to divert attention away from the fact that both of them are pulling more and more of the power out of the hands of "we the people™" and consolidating it in theirs.

So that folks is my response to my very first ever meme. as a part of this meme I must pass the torch along to five unwitting recipients. I therefore pass the torch to:

Sniper of the Sniper Blog
Zelda of The Urban Grind
Extreme of Rightwing Extreme
The brand new baby blogger over at Kharis Syringia

and

My lovely wife