I've Been Tagged

Greg Swann at Bloodhound Blog tagged me last week and I must admit -- I didn't even know I was playing.

A fun little game is circulating in the blogging world right now. The purpose of the game is not real clear, but since when did a game have to have a purpose to be played? 

Just ask the Green Bay Packers.

Now that Greg has tagged me, I am tasked to do two things:

1. Tell you 5 things you may not know about me
2. Tag somebody else and keep the game going

[Two hours later]

This is harder than I thought.  I am reading back over The Mortgage Reports and there is precious little that I haven't shared already.  The stuff that's off-limits (i.e. my wife and family) stays that way on purpose -- a happy wife is a happy life, if you follow me.

So, I am stuck on the following:

1. I have run two Chicago marathons.  The first one was boring, so my wife joined me on the second.  On the final 5-10 steps, she ran ahead of me and ended up beating me by one second.
2. I was a software developer out of college and worked for a dotcom company in Redwood City.  The company had a planned IPO for April 2000.  You can guess what happened next.  The Spring of 2000 was one of the strangest time periods of my professional career.
3. When I played competitive baseball, I threw an 86 MPH fastball and had a curve ball that dropped like a bowling ball off of a table.  I still play competitive baseball, but that fastball seems to have lost its zip a bit.  I never did get the knuckle ball down.
4. After college, I flew to Europe, bought a guitar, and financed my four-month-long trip by playing street corners in over 30 cities.
5. I have eaten a 14" pumpkin pie in one sitting.  Multiple times.

Wow.  That was tough!  I had no idea how challenging it can be to be interesting.

As a reward for a job completed, I am choosing to tag Jeff Kerr and Fran Bailey -- two Chicagoland real estate agents.

Thanks for letting me play, Greg!  Here's the History of Tag, as it led to me.

• Drew of Drew’s Marketing Minute
• Starbucker
• Trevor Gay of Simplicity
• Phil of Make it Great
• Kammie of Passion Meet’s Purpose
• Success from the Nest
• Dave of Rothacker Reviews
• Andrea Learned of Learned on Women
• Ann Handley of the Marketing Profs Daily Fix
• Nedra Weinreich, Spare Change
• Toby Bloomberg, the Diva Marketer
• Paul Chaney, Strategic Blogging
• Mark McKnight, RSS Pieces
• Jim Cronin, The Real Estate Tomato
• Greg Swann, The Bloodhound Blog

And the game continues...