Day Eight: Ten Things About the Battle Medic

This post is part of a series "20 Days of... WoW Blogging Challenge", a blogging challenge suggested by Saga at Spellbound. She proposes twenty questions to be answered in twenty days and I, foolishly, have decided to take up this most daunting task because clearly my schedule is not full enough.


DAY EIGHT:  TEN THINGS ABOUT THE BATTLE MEDIC

1.  I'm 36 years old and live in Edmonton, Alberta with my wife Jenn, two beagles named Milo and Sisko and, of course, the darling little dwarfling, Teagan. I've been here for almost six years and moved from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Like all Saskatchewan ex-pats, I am curiously and fiercely fond of where I come from.

2.  I am a moderately large sports fan with a twist. I don't follow a sport, I follow a team. I follow and cheer for the Saskachewan Roughriders of the CFL, and try to go to the two games per year that they play here in Edmonton. Other than the Riders, however, I have no interest in the CFL whatsoever. Same thing for baseball - I was a mammoth Montreal Expos fan. I actually took my future wife to Montreal to see 8 games in 10 days in the spring of 2000, which was a blast.  She doesn't have any interest in baseball so to make the trip memorable for her I proposed to her at the top of the Olympic Stadium tower.  When the Expos moved to Florida Washington I lost all interest in baseball.

3.  In the winter I Curl to keep fit. I have been curling for a long time - about 25 years now. The problem with curling as a fitness activity is the bar that is attached to the rink. Beer, oddly enough, is not a health food drink.

4.  My very first computer was an Apple ][e with an incredible (for the time) 128KB of RAM, a Green monochrome montior and two 5.25 inch floppy drives. I grew up on this thing and I still think back fondly on all the games that I had for it. I have played around with emulators, but it's just not the same as the real thing.

5.  I have what can only be described as an insane amount of computers in my house. As of this particular moment I have 5 computers running and 3 more sitting idle, just waiting for a purpose. My wife thinks I need to seek professional counselling for this.

6.  I am very proud of my touch-typing skills. I have been typing for about 25 years. My mother was a secretary and could type something like 100 words per minute on an actual typewriter, which always impressed the hell out of me.  I learned how to type with an antique, manual typewriter which, once I got even remotely fast became frustrating very quickly as I began to jam the keys.

My own typing skills are pretty good, although occasionally suffer from disuse. I don't know how many words I can type per minute (I haven't tested myself in a long time), but my accuracy is pretty good when I'm using a keyboard that I'm used to. Interestingly, although I seldom use my laptop, I find it's keyboard the best typing keyboard I've ever used. Go figure.

The hardest thing that I have yet to master when it comes to typing is to slow down my brain enough so that my fingers can keep up.

I am trying to break myself of the habit of putting two spaces after a period, which in the era of proportionally spaced fonts is no longer necessary. Because I learned how to type in the age of typewriters, it was ingrained in me to double-space at the end of a sentence and has become a completely subconscious habit. Wow, is this ever a hard habit to get out of. If you look back at the last 10 articles or so on this blog you will see a crazy mish-mash of single and double spaces at the end of my sentences as I struggle with Double-Space Addiction.

7.  In many ways I am a perfectionist. Whenever I try to learn something new, I always reach to do it at a professional level. Whether it's designing a website, taking a photo, playing chess or the guitar, or writing a blog - I always want to take it to a very high degree professional quality or competence.

A really telling example is this 20 Days of... Challenge. There is no reason for me to have tried to actually do it in twenty consecutive days - heck, even Saga isn't actually doing one of these posts every day.  However, I feel compelled to push myself.  I was doing pretty good until this post, which is one day late.

In many ways, however, I am an utter failure at being a perfectionist because it's really an impossible standard to hold yourself to.  It's impossible to be an expert at everything.  I'll talk more about this on Day 11.

8.  I am a Wine and Whisky aficionado. I love a great wine and I absolutely go weak-kneed for a fine Single Malt Scotch whisky. I've been drinking wine for a long time, but was really educated when I met Andrew - a Scotsman friend of mine with an amazing palate for liquor. He taught me how to really taste the differences, and how to analyse and express what I was tasting.

Since then, I have tried to become an expert. I left the car industry for a job as a wine sales rep a few years ago and I have hosted dozens of whisky tastings. Needless to say, I've spent more than a few mornings feeling like Magmaw after a 25-man raid had their way with me the night before.

9.  I have been in the car industry for about six years now, not including the year that I spent selling wine. I sell Jaguars and Land Rovers. Contrary to popular opinion it is possible to be a car salesman without being a complete scumbag.

10.  My personality is an odd mix of introverted, quiet loner and exuberant, outgoing life-of-the-party guy. It all depends on my mood. I am completely and utterly dedicated to my wife, but can be an absolutely outrageous flirt at times. Yay, contradictory personality traits!


Yesterday, WHY THIS IS DWARVEN BATTLE MEDIC
Tomorrow, THE FIRST BATTLE MEDIC POST