25 Randy, er, Random Things About Me

I got tagged. Normally my policy toward tagging is the same as the U.S. policy on not dealing with terrorists. When this stuff was really popular I was getting tagged every day. Then it died down, maybe because I wasn’t responding to people and they gave up. But if Michel Fortin tags you, you have to respond. It’s a rule somewhere. I can dig it up of you really need to see it in writing.

Anyway, here’s how this one works:

Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a post with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose five more people to be tagged. You also have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you. To do this, you simply link to their blogs so that they know you responded to their tag.

You may include the above rules in your post so that the person being tagged knows them, too. You may also want to tweet your post to notify them on Twitter, too.  (That’s how I found out I was tagged by Fortin.)

So here we go.  25 things you may or may not care to know about me, randomized:

1.  I, too, am a drummer.  High school marching band, to rock band “We’re gonna be famous, dude!” type things, to several other cliches born out of the invincibility and promise of youth.

2.  I likes me some rock.  Yeah, I’ll listen to Foo Fighters, but if the desert island scenario presents itself and I can only take certain music with me, Led Zeppelin, Dio, Black Sabbath, Metallica, Alice in Chains, Chris Cornell, and a few of the same ilk are coming with me.

3.  I’m married to a Cajun.  A literally dying breed of American who speak their own version of French and cook some mad food you can’t find anywhere else in the world.

4.  I have a son, almost 3 years old, who is eerily smart and is developing a sense of humor like ours, which may not be a good thing.  Kid freaks me out.

5.  I live in an area of my town where more millionaires (per capita) than anywhere else in America lived at one time.  I live in one of their houses.  Now a neighborhood of mixed socio-economic backgrounds and cultures.

6.  I’m a former bear, mountain lion, wildlife tracker.

7.  I used to help destroy old “roads” in national forests that ORV people made.  I did it legally. 

8.  One of my dearest friends is Dave Foreman, founder of Earth First!, The Wildands Project, and now the Rewilding Institute, where I donate our web services.

9.  I’m not a programmer, although I can talk to them in a pseudo language we both sort of understand.  They tolerate me, which is a plus in my business.

10.  I was “poor” most of my life until I got on the web in 1998 and started messing around with “for profit” stuff.

11.  I worked for Greenpeace in Washington DC in the very early 1990’s, banging on doors and raising money.

12.  I was Canvas Director of Citizens for a Better Environment in Chicago.

13.  I donned a fake radiation suit and lined up in front of the Whitehouse with fellow activists to protest nuclear testing when it was still being conducted by the French government. (Yeah, I’m old.)

14.  I have an FBI file that I should request to see what interesting things they have on me.  There was always a “suit” taking pictures of us whenever we did a peaceful protest.

15.  I’m not as excited as everyone else apparently is about the “greening” of America and the apparent pride the nation feels.  I’ve known we needed to do alternative energy and aggressive conservation for decades.  If only I had been able to convice everyone in the DC area almost 20 years ago to give a damn then, we wouldn’t have such a hard road ahead now.

16.  I’m an Obama supporter, but I have problems with the current spending bill that match up with conservatives.  Therefore, I’m in the independent category.  Still, I never want to hear GWB’s voice for the rest of my life if at all possible.

17.  I have 2 partners at BlogSuccess.com.  I know, they stay in the background and make me do all the face time stuff.  But I don’t want to do their jobs either.  Peter Lenkefi and Brandon Hall rock!

18.  I wrote the Authority Black Book in a week.  Although the first edition was over two years ago, it was downloaded 50,000 times and continues at 50-60 downloads per day.

19.  I have a great publicist, Anissa Wardell, who is the one who lines up and schedules all my podcasts and interviews.  She is currently, seriously, working on Perez Hilton and some other notables not typically associated with internet marketing.

20.  I’ve sung karaoke with Joel Comm and Armand Morin.  I’d never done it before and haven’t done it since.  But it was an “experience.”

21.  I went to Stephen Pierce’s house in Texas where Russell Simmons was speaking, along with the mean girl from The Apprentice, and missed the whole thing to go back to my hotel to work with a client.  That’s dedication! 

22.  I’m a massive Golden Retriever nut.  My two Goldens passed away and I haven’t been able to get a new one since.  I’ll stop my car and stalk people I see walking their Goldens on the sidewalk until I get some petting time.

23.  Although I enjoy what I’m doing right now, my goal from the beginning of my internet career has been to get to a place where I no longer need to be involved and to take all my devices outside, on the roof, and throw them off, hard!  I want to be outside.  The things I love to do most have nothing to do with electricity and creature comforts.  Give me a raft and a raging river through rock billion year old canyons, bears, wolves, and mountain lions any day!

24.  I’ve never written 25 things about myself.  This isn’t easy!

25.  This one has to be really good because it’s the last one!  So, ever since I was lucky enough to meet him and moderate the Warrior Forum with him, I’ve tried to model how I do business after Willie Crawford.  To this day I consider him the original and still champion of doing business on the web properly, with respect, integrity, and willingness to truly help the people he works with.

Now, who shall I tag?

How about Willie Crawford, Maria Reyes-McDavis, Jim Stroud, Diane Corriette, and Rusty Moore.  Take it away guys.  This was actually kind of cathartic.  Enjoy!

Tagged as: 25 things, about jack humphrey, getting tagged, jack humphrey