10 Interesting Things About Me

I'm a little stuck on my current build so I thought it'd be fun to shift gears and write a little about myself while I wait for my craftsman's block to subside. That's a thing, isn't it? Like writer's block? So here are 10 things about me:

1 I don't know much about ships or woodworking. I started this blog as a beginner with the intention of helping other beginners. I'm still a beginner.

2  My day job is in the field of computer science. It's probably easiest to just say I'm a computer programmer, though I could bore you for awhile with a more esoteric description.

3  I live in Iowa, and not even along the Mississippi river so I never see any ships. Fun fact: technically I'm Mr. Linn County because I'm married to Mrs. Linn County (my wife thought the Mrs. America pageant would be an interesting life experience. "Interesting" proved to be a good word for it).

4  I'm married and have one daughter. My wife is currently a stay at home mom who has an amazing talent for sewing. Check out her work at Pockets and Sleeves! My daughter is two years old and I'll let you insert all the cliches about how people generally feel about the light of their lives. Suffice it to say she's awesome and the cliches are true.

5  My other hobby is cooking and I especially like to try new recipes on the weekends. I can make a red sauce and meatballs capable of competing with your Italian grandma's sauce. Actually my meatballs are better than hers. Oh, I like to roast my own coffee too; I take coffee pretty seriously.

6  I'm a trained weather spotter with the National Weather Service. Sounds cool but really you just take a 2-3 hour class every four years and then you report hail/strong winds/heavy rain to a website. It's fun though, I like severe weather.

7  I've been sober since November 29, 2013.

8  I was homecoming king in high school which is cool because I was in marching band instead of on the football team. Take that, teen movie plot lines!

9  A few random skills: pretty damn fast at mental math, been playing the trumpet for 15 years, can juggle, y yo hablo español. I've practiced Brazilian jiu-jitsu for 2 years.

10  I can grow a full beard in like two days. It's a curse but it's the best curse. This is what I look like when my daughter puts fuzzy balls in my beard: