Ten things I’ve done (that you probably haven’t)

It’s probably a sign of my impending intellectual bankruptcy that I’m succumbing to memeposting, but I like this one (via Todd at Frolic, who got it from EveTushnet.com, and who also points to these folks). Do I have ten things? Well…

  1. Been a state spelling champion. (What, you didn’t know there were state spelling champions? Only in Virginia.)
  2. Shaken James Michener’s hand wearing clothes that I had flown in the day before, since my luggage had gotten lost en route.
  3. Sung under the baton of Robert Shaw, twice—once at the Kennedy Center.
  4. Jammed—and recorded—with Dave Brubeck in the Washington National Cathedral.
  5. Fractured my sternum.
  6. Sung for President Bill Clinton and NBC anchor (and Wahoo) Katie Couric on the same day.
  7. Asked six or seven senior Microsoft executives when they were going to stop pissing off a substantial community of potential customers by calling Open Source Software a “cancer.”
  8. Helped build software that’s saving American lives and taxpayer money in places like Afghanistan—and supporting humanitarian missions in Cambodia.
  9. With the help of 15 close friends, sampled beer from more than 50 countries in one sitting.
  10. Driven cross country in four days.

What’s interesting to me looking back at this list is that many of the items are about my singing—which I haven’t really done since I got back to Boston. Time to change that.