100 Things

I came across this post while surfing on blogexplosion, and I laughed out loud reading it! So I thought it would be really fun to do my own.... here you go!

100 Things About Me

1. My first home was in Falcon Heights, MN.

2. It was so close to the state fairgrounds that we could see the fireworks from our upstairs window.

3. My sister and I shared a room, and we played multi-day games with our My Little Ponies.

4. My second home was in Reno, NV.

5. Our mom sometimes let us pick the numbers for Keno while we ate at buffets.

6. In 4th grade my favorite song was "Blame it on the Rain" by Milli Vanilli.

7. My first concert was Gloria Estafan, and I loved it!

8. I did ballet for 7 or 8 years as a kid. I am still not that graceful, so I can only imagine how bad it would be if I hadn't done ballet!

9. I played clarinet from 6th grade through my first year of undergrad.

10. I had 5 majors in college (University of Arizona) which were the following: economics, music education, mechanical engineering, computer engineering, and applied math.

11. After 6 years, I finally graduated with BS degrees in computer engineering and applied math.

12. During college I spent a semester studying abroad in Sydney, Australia.

13. I tell people I went to Sydney to study abroad, which is true, but the real reason I went there was for a guy.

14. It didn't work out with the guy. But Sydney was a great place!!

15. Aside from baby-sitting, my first real job was at McDonald's.

16. I got really sick of their fries and still won't eat them.

17. I spent two years in college on the solar car team.

18. When we went to the American Solar Challenge to race the solar car, I was the one who performed all the safety tests. Someone had to get unbuckled and out of the car in under 10 seconds, so I did it because I was the smallest. The reason I was the smallest is that I was the only girl on the team.

19. I have been to Europe 7 times. I actually had had enough after the 6th time, but last summer my boyfriend was in Italy, so I went to visit him.

20. When I was in Spain in 1998, we went to a capea, which is a bull-fight with a baby bull.

21. All of us in my group got to go into the bull ring and try out bull-fighting. I was really scared but I did it, and after we moved the flag and the bull ran though, I was so excited!

22. Little did I know that the bull went behind me, turned around, and then started heading back towards me. People told me to run but the bull was faster and it headed me in the butt! (It didn't really hurt, as I remember - just a little scary).

23. One time in high school a guy told me (via a friend, of course) that he wouldn't ask me out because I liked star trek.

24. I have autographs from several famous Star Trek actors, including Michael Dorn and Marina Sirtis. So who's laughing now?

25. I also have a phone that is shaped like the Starship Enterprise. Too bad no one uses landlines anymore.

26. Most of my boyfriends have been engineers. For some reason, none of them has liked Star Trek.

27. I have always loved to plan parties. In high school I organized a "lock-in" for about 30 friends at this indoor jungle gym.

28. My parties keep getting bigger. In undergrad, I threw lots of house parties and a formal dance for the Society of Women Engineers.

29. Last month (May 08) I threw a boat party for 110 of my closest friends. Ok I didn't know most of them. :) But it was a great party!

30. When I turn 30 I want to have a spectacular party. Hopefully a rooftop party.

31. I used to write restaurant reviews on my website www.thefoodlog.com

32. I once wrote an article about 5 different ways to make mac & cheese - actually each way just involves adding different mix-ins to your mac & cheese.

33. I could probably open a store that is like Coldstone Creamery but for mac & cheese. I think it would fill an important market niche.

34. When I was a kid in Phoenix, my sister and I swam in the pool almost every day. (We were way too old to be playing ponies by then.)

35. I used to pretend I was a mermaid a lot.

36. I have been making mix tapes for about as long as I've been throwing parties.

37. In high school I used to record songs off of the radio, and I think my mix tapes are still in my mom's house in a box.

38. In the late 90's, we got our first web browser and I somehow found a place where you could download 30 second wav files, which I used to make (really short) mixes.

39. I recently found a website (www.mixaloo.com) where you can make your own mixes. I was so excited when I found this, if I were a gymnast, I would have done a backflip!

40. I'm really bad at directions!

41. Last summer I got directions from a blind person. I'm not kidding.

42. In my defense, I think that blind people have a lot more incentive to memorize the location of things.

43. I started undergrad when I was 17.

44. I had to 'sneak into' the rock gym, i.e. lie and say I was 18, because if you're under 18 you need parental permission. Luckily they didn't card me.

45. I actually got a fake ID when I was 19.

46. The first place I tried to use it was Zachary's pizza in Tucson. I was so excited to go in there and use my ID, and then when I asked for a beer they didn't even card me!

47. I got the ID taken away about a year later at O'Malleys, in Tucson.

48. I am totally addicted to caffeine. Sometimes I think about quitting, but I don't really want to.

49. One of my favorite things about living in Seattle is the abundance of coffee shops with free wifi.

50. My favorite Seattle drink is the Cozy Latte at Zoka's. But despite all the awesome coffee shops here, I still love the caramel macchiatto at Starbucks.

51. Aside from McDonalds (and baby-sitting) all of my jobs have been coding jobs. These days I mostly write perl and bash scripts, with the odd dash of Matlab.

52. Sometimes I wish I were a mailman. I think it would be nice to be outside every day... but I hate driving so that probably wouldn't work out so well.

53. I have done some volunteering on and off, usually spurred by some kind of boredom.

54. In high school I volunteered at two nursing homes. I mostly just helped push patients to and from lunch, bingo, etc. Sometimes I'd take them outside or just hang out and chat.

55. I liked most of the work at the nursing homes, but I hated making toast. During meals people always wanted toast, and I never made it right! It was always too light or too dark. So I threw away a lot of toast.

56. My next big volunteer stint was with Big Brothers Big Sisters after I finished undergrad.

57. My 'little sister' loved to go to the drive in, and it was great because tickets were only $2! I learned that kids have horrible taste in movies, but it was fun.

58. I just started volunteering again, this time at the IRC teaching refugees to use computers.

59. The volunteering is great for me because it puts some structure into my schedule. In grad school my schedule is very amorphous.

60. I love traveling! I have been to 20 countries outside of the US.

61. I still have a long list of countries that I want to go to.

62. Another thing that I love almost as much as traveling, mix tapes, and throwing parties is trying new foods.

63. I love all the Thai food, Indian food, and salmon in Seattle, but I really miss the authentic Sonoran food I had in Tucson.

64. I bought a house in Tucson that was close to my work, but I ended up hating it because it was far away from everything else.

65. The one good thing about my house was that it was near a famous taco stand called El Guero Canelo.

66. El Guero Canelo was quite good, but there was one across the street called BK's that I liked better because it had shorter lines and better guacamole.

67. At taco stands I always ordered a caramelo. It's a quesadilla but with meat in it. So good! And to drink I'd either get horchata or a manzana lift. You can't take away your drink there because you have to leave the glass bottle when you're done. They reuse them. (Or I guess send them to a bottling plant?)

68. I don't own an iPod, even though I love music a lot. I might be the last person on earth to buy one.

69. I almost bought one but I got a Nokia 5300 phone, which plays music. It's not quite as nice as an iPod but for me it's close enough.

70. Plus I got the Nokia for free because my roommate works at T-Mobile. I have some mad hook-ups.

71. The most roommates I have had at one time is 3. This is when I lived on 6th street in Tucson. That house was a fantastic party house.

72. I lived with my sister 3 different times, not including growing up with her.

73. I really miss my sister and because we live far apart now it's unlikely we will ever live together again. She was a great roommate and I loved borrowing her clothes.

74. I want to get a second home in Costa Rica. (Or possibly a first home.) Hopefully my sister will come down there and visit me a lot.

75. I took Spanish all through high school so I'm kind of decent at it.

76. I have also taken one semester each of Polish and German.

77. I have a short attention span.

78. Sometimes I try to play sports even though I am really bad at them.

79. In college I played intermural soccer for a couple seasons.

80. When I was working I played on a company softball team.

81. The first season I kept striking out, but the team loved me because they had a rule that whoever strikes out has to buy beer next time.

82. I started going to the batting cage to practice, and decided to buy my own bat.

83. I accidentally bought a kid's sized bat. People on my team laughed at me, but I still have that bat. I think for my skill level it was a fine bat.

84. My favorite sports are not team sports, they are surfing, wakeboarding, skiing, and running. I guess I mostly like expensive sports.

85. When I was 19 I discovered wakeboarding and I was really excited about it. But I couldn't go very often because I lived in Tucson, so I bought a skateboard to practice on.

86. I didn't get very good at skateboarding. But there's nothing cooler-looking than a grown woman trying to learn how to skateboard!

87. I ran a half marathon last November. That was the ultimate athletic achievement of my life.

88. In undergrad I spent a lot of time in the library. Some friends and I once broke into a study room because we couldn't find an available one to use.

89. My friend Scott climbed through the ceiling and opened the door from the inside, then took apart the look and pushed all the pins down so that we could open the door with a credit card. It was our personal study room for the rest of the year, and I brought my own whiteboard and hung it up in the room.

90. In high school I was in the environmental club. We had a contest to see who could bring in the most recycle logos (cut out from a cardboard box or something like that). I fell into my mom's recycle bin trying to win that contest. If I remember correctly, I did not win.

91. I used to think that the Sierra Club was full of crazy radicals, but last year I met someone who is in it and is really normal, so I decided to join.

92. I'm now a crazy radical. (JK...)

93. I hate driving, which is one of the main reasons I moved to Seattle.

94. One of my dreams is to never have to drive again. Hopefully I will be contemplating my lack of driving while sipping cocktails on the beach in Costa Rica.

95. I fell in love with drinking when I got to college - mostly because I am really shy.

96. Drinking definitely changed my life for the better, and gave me some great funny stories that I can tell my grandkids.

97. For example, one time I woke up in my going-out clothes but with no pants on. (Nothing bad happened ... )

98. I once ate 10 tacos from Del Taco in an hour. I didn't feel super good afterwards, but I didn't suffer a 'reversal'.

99. I still sleep with my teddy bear Toto who I have had since before I can remember.

100. That was way too fun... I must really be full of myself!! :)