Beautiful, baby, beautiful

I was pleased to be honored recently with the Beautiful Blogger Award:

This was bestowed on me by Ganymeder, a fellow #FridayFlasher and all around good egg. Her citation for me is:

~What can I say? I just love his writing. He’s the author of the Just Enough Power series as well as some great poetry, including “Ode to the Semicolon.”

Thank you! These two pieces represent two very different sides of my creative ability: dark and brutal vs. light and whimsical. I'd guess that anyone reading the two side by side might have a hard time believing that one person wrote them both. It's gratifying to hear that they both appeal.

I should note that Ganymeder introduced her son to creative writing and helps him put his work out on the Internet for people to read and comment upon. Sooner or later, the child welfare people will catch wind of this and put a stop to it. Where will the accountants, lawyers and politicians of the future come from if such efforts are not squashed? Until then, however, creativity abounds.

So, the guidelines for this award are that I am to reveal 7 things about myself, and pass the award along. I'm going to take a cue from Alan Baxter and hold off on the list of new nominees. I'll hold this as an option for the future.

The 7 things about me, all perfectly true:

1. When I was hit by a car in 1993, it meant a rather unnerving ambulance ride to the emergency room. The doctors assumed that I had massive bleeding in the brain, since one pupil was dilated significantly more than the other. The only thing that kept them from drilling a hole in my head to let the blood out was the fact that I was awake and articulate. It turns out I just have one weird eye.

2. I was an early adopter of OS/2 and used it as my primary operating system for most of the 1990s. (You don't have to tell me about losing causes.)

3. I bought my current watch primarily because it has a slide rule on the bezel.

4. I earned a Sharpshooter & Marksman's rating when I was 14. What does that mean? It means I could put 9 small holes in a quarter from 50 yards away. That makes me deadly in addition to beautiful.

5. Someone once said that talking to me was like talking to a rock star. I didn't even owe this person any money.

6. Even though I'm regularly asked to write funny things and be funny in public speaking situations, I'm always nervous about doing so.

7. There are a great many things that I'm very good at, but which I don't particularly enjoy doing.

There you have it - the life of a Beautiful Blogger!

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