Eight Things you didn’t know about me

I was tagged by both Maggie and Shiv to share eight things in this meme, it’s an interesting way to learn about folks, so here are 8 things you may or may not know.

1) I used to be a music major: Being creative has been threaded through my life, I started playing piano at age 4. I eventually picked up trombone, and started to play jazz in junior high; won a bunch of awards. In college I continued this and was a jazz performance major then realized that unless you were really exceptional (I wasn’t) then I had to find another career. I found the web, and I never looked back, it met all my creative desires. I’m listening to all the music that I love often while I’m writing, researching, or working, it hasn’t gone away. Rather than the 88 keyed piano keyboard, I’ve just found a new one, the qwerty.

2) I was born and raised in Fresno, the bible belt of California. I always felt a little out of place in Fresno, it’s certainly not as diverse and open minded as the bay area (although it’s changed now) and my roots are of a rural boy.

3) The first website I made was for a college project: And it involved me wife, we were in the same BICS (Business Information Computer Systems) class and were tasked to build a working HTML model of an eCommerce site. The products we were assigned were Lladro and Disney collectibles. I gleefully did all the work, and she didn’t seem to mind. I think we got a B.

4) My first task at a real company was horrible. My first task as an intern was in IT, I had to scrub the employee directory database and look for inconsistencies, holes, duplicates, and correct them. I screwed it up, as I got my revisions wrong, and had to redo it all over again.

5) I thought my career was going to be intranet focused: For a long time, I thought I was going to be developing web strategies for intranets, when I ran really hard into social media in summer of 2005 I knew that was it, I never looked back since.

6) My family and friends are surprised: I was a wild and crazy boy, and didn’t seem to have the responsibility in school to succeed in the workplace. In retrospect, as much as it was my energy of a youth, I also realize now that structured school systems aren’t for everyone, I thrive in creative environments, not forced learning and forced exploration.

7) For our Chinese wedding we did a Salsa dance. It’s true, we shocked our entire family by doing a salsa dance at our wedding, it was choregraphed by a local instructor, we took over 100 lessons over a few years, and went to salsa clubs, it was our hobby for a few years. As a result, the party was so energized that even the oldest aunties and youngest cousins were excited to dance the night away.

8 ) I was very nervous on my first public speech. In 2005, I gave my first presentation at the Marketers’ creativity event, and I was nerve wracked days before the event, overplanned, and had a hard time relaxing. Over time, you just get used to it, and now I really look forward to most public presentations.

I’m supposed to tag other folks for this meme to spread, but I’m going to try something different. I’ll let YOU decide to share your eight things, just link to this post, share your eight, then link to eight others. If you don’t have a blog, feel free to share in the comments of this very post.

20 Replies to “Eight Things you didn’t know about me”

  2. Enjoyed the post. Music major as well…my undergrad degree is in piano…but I never play now. However, you’re right, creativity springs out…I don’t think you can stop it. Anyways…enjoyed your 8!

    Jeff
    jeff.tippettATcalvertholdingsDOTcom

  3. Hi Jeremiah,

    Thanks for sharing, it’s nice to read about more personal stuff about you.

    Fresno, huh? My wife is from Bakersfield, the armpit of Ca 🙂

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  6. cool

    Well..
    I was born in Qatar in 83. Moved to Pakistan in 86, lived there till 93 and then moved to Fremont, CA

    My major was biology with emphasis in neuroscience. I hate doing lab research but can understand it.

    I made my first website in 1997 and added a bunch of links. I had AOL since 96 and used to chat on it alot, and I’ve chatted with people of ALL sorts, from technophile phreakers to brilliant 15 yr olds designing flash right when it came out, to men in yellow smiley face underwear pretending to be young girls to all sorts of people

    But I never really learned many technical skills, was too distracted by video games. I did learn the whole aspect of coexisting on the net and communicating with others online. I saw exploits and the way people were carrying themselves online, subtleties you can only learn through participation. But I was young and nobody really guided me, so I never saw any opportunities (sad). Oh well
    As a futurist, I’m still interesting in neuroscience, AI, developmental biology, nanotechnology, and transhumanism.

    By the way I love music too, although I love to dance. Been doing it since I was young. Won square dancing championships and what not but I love funky/electro house, soca, calypso and some desi music along with hiphop and reggae at times.

  9. I wish that I had the foresight to do what you did re moving the meme forward. I tagged eight people (which is a lot of people, when you think about it) and am now wondering if I ended up getting 7 of them mad at me. (I’ve already experienced negative reactions toward @tweetgift-ing).

    Incidentally, I was tagged by Doug Haslam. I’ve linked to my responses.

  10. I have a blog but think it would be more fun to list my eight things here (plus you get more traffic than I do):

    1) I’m originally from Maine so I’m a rural kinda guy too.
    2) I took piano lessons for 8 years – didn’t enjoy it at the time but I’m happy now that I did it.
    3) I cross-country skied growing up. I didn’t try down hill until Jr. year of high school. My first trip skiing was miserable (let’s just say that it ended with me breaking my skis — that I had borrowed.
    4) I took French for 7 years starting with private lessons in 6th grade. I’m still not fluent.
    5)I studied Russian and Soviet Studies in undergrad (UMass) and grad school (Georgetown) but don’t do a thing with it now. Ugh.
    6) I am two courses short of getting my masters degree. It was because of a girl (not my wife) – I got distracted.
    7) These days, it seems like I watch two things on television: sports and Food Network (love Iron Chef America) — I’m probably more excited than I should be that Jamie Oliver is back on FN.
    8) I started blogging about 20 months ago. I look back at my first blog posts and it’s hard to believe that I wrote some of that crap.

  11. Ontario, yeah these kind of memes can be kinda lame to those that don’t want to do it, so that’s one of the reasons I’m choosing to let folks opt-in.

    I’m going to start a meme called, “stop the meme, meme”

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  19. Eight things:

    1. I was served beer more than once by Sarah McLachlan back in the early 90s.

    2. My two favorite collected objects are a brick from the first school I attended (Norman MacLeod school, RIP) and a piece of an ill-fated Indy car from a race in Halifax that I covered as a journalist

    3. I harbour a secret affection for “COPS” and miss it now that I don’t get it anymore…

    4. My first computer was a TI99/4A with a cassette recorder for storage.

    5. A year or so ago, a five-year-old friend who is a VERY close friend to us nearly died from meningitis. One of the most profound experiences of my life was to read her a story while she was in an induced coma and be told that her rising heart rate was because she recognized the voices I was using to play the characters. (She’s perfect now, and as sweet a child as you can imagine)

    6. I cried the day Gilles Villeneuve died.

    7. I am shocked at how quickly I learned to make really good espresso. I think I missed a calling.

    8. I got excited to see Jeremiah Owyang quoted in the Saturday Ottawa Citizen and be able to say I know him, albeit virtually. How sad is that?

    Bob.

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