Originally posted Feb. 6, 2009
Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.
1. My childhood hero was Scrooge McDuck. And yes, once, when I was six, I took my meager cash possessions, and attempted to swim in a bunch of dirty dimes in my grandparents' living room.
2. One of my first memories is of a Gumby episode where he goes to space. If I remember correctly, he gets sick because there is no oxygen on the Moon. (I watched a lot of TV growing up.)
3. I play Monopoly to win, by any means necessary. During one game, I took advantage of my grandma's poor command of the English language to discourage her from buying Boardwalk. ("No grandma. No buy!")
4. In third grade, I was convinced that you went to Hell if you said three bad words. I told people I was saving them up for when I was older. That year, I proceeded to use 2/3 of my quota during a particularly angry moment during a game of four-square.
5. My grandpa would take me to the local municipal golf course, where I would putt with a plastic set on the practice greens. At some point we were chased off by the groundskeeper. He then made a hole and pin in his backyard, topped with a Japanese flag.
6. I once chopped myself in the leg with a hatchet. Fortunately I've always lacked significant upper body strength, and didn't need stitches. I still have a small scar.
7. My father is bipolar. That disorder led to my parents being divorced when I was three, and some awkward encounters growing up. The fear of becoming like him has been both a driving force and a source of great pain in my life. It is only recently that I've been forced to confront that part of my psyche, and I am happy to report that I think I've come to terms with it.
8. I absolutely adore Oscar Wilde. I adore all things witty and pretty.
9. The paradigms of evolutionary psychology and game theory have completely changed how I view life, though not quite how I live it. I think this is a decent balance for now.
10. At some point in my life I had wanted to be a pediatrician, a ninja turtle, an astronomer, President of the United States, a senator from the Old South, a poet, and a community organizer. At the moment I am none of these things.
11. In my room, I have two pictures of my grandfather. One shows him in Japan with his teacher, Kyoshi Takahama, one of the great 20th century haiku poets. My grandfather was offered the opportunity to take over Takahama-sama's literary magazine, but chose to stay in the US to farm and care for his growing family. The second picture shows my grandfather with a number of Japanese-American civic leaders sometime after Pearl Harbor in an undisclosed location in Arizona. They had been picked up by the FBI, and would rejoin their families in internment camps across the central United States for the duration of the war.
I have both of these pictures to remind me of how far my family has come, and that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
12. Whenever I get disenchanted or otherwise overly cynical, I listen to Ted Kennedy reading his Eulogy for Robert F. Kennedy overlaid with Samuel Barber's Agnus Dei. That combination has never failed to inspire me.
13. I own a white suit. I justify it to myself because it has paid for itself by helping me win a cash prize last Halloween at a bar, where I won the "Scariest Costume" prize as a "Straight Asian Michael Jackson". (Specifically, I was MJ from the Smooth Criminal video.)
14. I've read (and own) "The Game: Infiltrating the Secret Society of Pick-Up Artists." It was hilarious.
15. I volunteered a lot in college. Yes, before I became a greedy political creature, I once cared about things like feeding the homeless, donating blood, and otherwise doing good works here on Earth.
16. I left graduate school incredibly depressed, angry, and lost. It's taken a few months, but I think I'm back to normal. I miss the people I left behind there, even though I think it was ultimately the right decision.
17. My greatest regret from childhood was quitting piano when I was seven. My second greatest regret was not going to Japanese school. I plan on living vicariously through my children, and subjecting them to lots of classes and not giving them a choice about them until they have their own mortgage.
18. I've won almost as many golf trophies as I have math trophies. But at the moment my handicap is probably about 30. (Another handicap is that I live in a perpetually frozen part of the country.)
19. I have a perverse attraction to convenience store hot dogs - the older the better.
20. As much as I may complain about it, I'm grateful I went to a mediocre California public school and am from a middle-class background. I feel that as a result, I'm able to relate to people a lot more easily than other people from more restrictive or privileged backgrounds.
21. Church has been a huge positive in my life. Religion has given me a lot to ponder. Doctrine has proven completely useless.
22. I have been told that my greatest quality is the ability to see good in just about anyone, and telling them about it in a way that is both sincere and novel.
23. I believe that the most important space policy question of the next decade is the decision to either pay the Russians for continued access to space or to accelerate a successor program, perhaps through a partnership between NASA/DoD or through private industry.
24. Reading about George C. Marshall and Dwight D. Eisenhower completely changed my views on America and the US Military for the better. I believe no finer examples exist for young Americans looking for models for excellence and service.
25. My private prayer is for moral courage, not moral perfection.
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