Seven things you may or may not care to know about me

After having been hounded for weeks by my friend Julie Chapman to write a new meme, I finally decided to just bite the bullet and do it while I have a little free time tonight.

Here we go:

1. I sincerely considered a career as a cartoonist or artist when I was a kid.  I used to sit for hours copying the comics from the Sunday paper - Garfield, Snoopy, Beetle Bailey, Snuffy Smith, you name it.  I also have some sketches (somewhere) of entire rooms from my house and my grandmother's house.  I would choose a spot in the room, and draw everything that I could see while sitting there.

2. I cry at the drop of a hat.  So PLEASE stop dropping all of those hats around me!  Where did that phrase come from, anyway?  But I digress.  I seem to have obtained this from both sides of my family.  Here are a few things that will make me cry every time:

• McDonald's commercials
• Spontaneous gestures of love expressed from one of my kids to another
• The ending to "It's a Wonderful Life" (never fails)
• Having a prayer clearly answered, demonstrating God's love for me
• Certain songs from the late 70's, when I was about 7-9 years old

3. I am an only child, and so is my wife.  So were both of my parents, and my mother-in-law.  My father-in-law was not, but his brother is about 18 years older, so he was basically raised as an only kid.  With that in mind, our family tree sort of came to a point when my son was born 10 years ago.  That's one of many reasons that we wanted more children.

4. I have never travelled outside of the United States (except to cross the border into Mexico for a few hours), and I have lived in Texas my entire life.  Also, I have only visited a handful of U.S. states.  It may sound lame, but my wife and I don't really enjoy traveling all that much.  I prefer being around familiar stuff and people, I guess.

5. I played high school football, and I led the district in quarterback sacks as a defensive end on the team in my junior year. 

6. This may or may not seem noteworthy, but I read the entire Bible about a year and a half ago, and I am starting again soon, probably with a different translation.  My wife and I are both voracious readers, and now our kids are, too!  We are a family of readers, with literally thousands in our "collection".  The library was one of my favorite places when I was a kid.

7. There are certain phrases which will trigger a song lyric in my head, and I start singing to myself, or sometimes out loud.  I have the same issue with funny movie scenes.  Frankly, my wife and I have so many "in-jokes" now that it's ridiculous.  I see that as one of the perks of being together so long.  We understand each other.

My head hurts now.  Can I stop?  Thanks.