25 Random Things About Me (just couldn’t resist)

After reading everyone else’s “Random 25 Things About Me”, I started thinking of things that I would put down on a such a survey, and now I cannot resist.  As much as I hate these stupid “chain surveys”, this one is completely under my control and I don’t need to answer stupid questions like “have you ever eaten an entire box of Oreos?”

So here goes!

1. My name is Joseph Leonard.  My paternal grandfathers name is Leonard Joseph. My maternal grandfathers name was Joseph Andrew . Everyone wins!
2. I am 50% Irish and 50% Czech.  Ireland and the Czech republic are the #3 and #5 top alcohol consuming countries in the world (respectively).  This is a bad combination.
3. I sucked my thumb from the time I was born until roughly the age of 7.
4. When my mom was pregnant with my younger brother Brendan, I insisted that my parents name the baby “Laura”.  I don’t see why gender should matter.
5. If you are ever lucky enough to see an old home video of me as a child, you will only be able to pick up about half of what I said. Most of the time I spoke at such high frequencies that only dogs could hear.
6. I do not like chocolate. I never have. I am strange. Get over it.
7. I got sent to the principals office every single year from 3rd grade until my senior year of high school.  I was homeschooled K - 2nd so when the “principal” came home from work I would receive spankings that normal schools cannot administer.
8. I have the hairline of a 40 year old and the facial hair of a 14 year old. Neither of which are attractive to girls in their 20’s.
9. All of my friends know that I am somewhat of a geek. So when I graduated college, I took a job at a software company teaching people how to use our financial software. Take that world!
10. I taught myself how to play guitar probably around 7 years ago. I don’t practice enough to get really good but its one of my favorite things to do to relax.
11. I find most music on the radio today to be unoriginal and boring. I mostly listen to classic rock and oldies stuff.
12. One of my biggest weaknesses is procrastination.  If I am unsure about something, I will put it off hoping it will go away.
13. I am seriously researching buying a condo or small home in the next 2 years. I hate throwing away money in rent every month.
14. I am very OCD about my computer. I always empty my Recycling Bin, leave about 5 shortcuts on my desktop, and my digital music collection is perfectly ordered.
15. I have never seen any of the Godfather movies.
16. My favorite comedy movie has to be Dumb and Dumber. On any given day you have several opportunities to quote fitting lines from this movie.
17. I have been to 25 states. I don’t count airports.
18. All three cars I have owned have been standard transmission (and have all had moon roofs).
19. My summer job for about 7 years was landscaping. Every summer I miss doing that kind of work and hate being indoors – not so much during the winter months.
20. My senior year of college I went on two disaster relief trips. The first was to Jean Lafitte, Louisiana with a Quaker relief organization (no I’m not a Quaker). The second was to Birmingham, Alabama with Habitat for Humanity.
21. Because I often talk too much or without thinking, I try to live by Abraham Lincoln’s words: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”  I follow this about 10% of the time.
22. I love little kids and I really look forward to being a dad some day. Just not yet…
23. I crack my knuckles several times a day without realizing it – its only when people complain about it that I notice. Oh and I can crack my back too – sounds pretty gross.
24. I can do the best Gollum impression of anyone you know.  I usually start doing it after I watch Lord of the Rings, but don’t ask me to just do it on the spot.
25. After trying the “glasses look” for 2 1/2 years, I am getting contacts today.

I’ll probably keep thinking of things I should’ve added for the next week.

Just The Begin Ning

No the title is not a mistake. Its simply a clever play on words about the new website that I recently discovered and have been playing around with.  For the last few months I’ve been thinking of a better way to connect family members other than email. It just becomes a long thread of replies that gets messy and is easy to lost in the clutter a few weeks later.  So I came across this website that actually lets you build your own social networking website.

Ning.com

The benefit to using this over the traditional Facebook or Myspace is that this online “community” can be customized with different features, and its limited only to the users that we invite.  It has all the same features like posting photos, writing on a person’s profile wall, setting up events, etc.  I really think that this customized feel will make family members feel more comfortable than they might on a traditional large scale social networking site.

I sent out an invite to most of my aunts, uncles, and cousins. So far only the cousins have signed up (the more tech savvy generation), so hopefully the Baby Boomer generation will get the hang of things soon. Once it gets off the ground, it should be fun! So in a sense, its “just the beginning”.

Here’s a screenshot so far:

Nothing's Gonna Change My World

For the last few years I have been downloading the discography of classic artists and learning their songs. I did this a few years ago with Led Zeppelin and more recently I've been into a lot of Beatles. This stuff just blows contemporary music out of the water! So groundbreaking and so much more creative than the American Idol style garbage that's flooding the airwaves.

Enough of my pop music bashing...

As a guitar player I really appreciate a lot of the music itself outside of the vocals, effects, etc. One such song caught my attention because of its simple yet beautiful sounding guitar:

Across The Universe

This song was originally written by John Lennon in 1968 and was included on their final studio album Let it Be. It was also included on the Let It Be... Naked album in 2003 which featured a more "stripped down" version. I'm not really a huge fan of the chorus phrase "Jai guru deva om" (which is roughly translated to "hail to the divine guru"), but I've fallen in love with the actual music of the song itself.

So last night I busted out the ol' six string, checked out a few guitar tab websites, and learned most of the song. I eventually plan to use it to serenade women and have them fall deeply in love with me...

Priorities Straight

For the last month I've been thinking about my housing situation. Its only meant to be temporary but its been nice saving so much money.

All this got me thinking about how much money i threw away last year in rent money - even cheaper rent is still throwing it away. This got me real interested in buying a condo, townhouse, or small house in a year or so. To start my research before such a huge financial move, I figured I would grab a "buying your first home" book at Barnes and Noble. Sorting through the multiple materials they had on the topic got me questioning all sorts of things - if its even possible with my income. Trying to decide where your money is going can stressful!

I finally walked around the corner and found I was in the Christian Inspiration section ad found a collection of writings from one of my favorite authors C.S. Lewis.

So instead of grabbing a book on finance, I figured I should probably get my heart in the right place first - finance can wait i suppose.

Hiding Behind Humor

I was thinking about this on my way to work while reflecting on the whole New Years resolution thing.  I think one of my greatest strengths is also one of my greatest weeknesses:

laughter

I love to make people feel comfortable and to lighten the mood with humor.  Sometimes I make aweful pun jokes that people role their eyes to - like when my wallet fell out on the beach and I told my friends I had found a "sand dollar" (one of my worst).  But sometimes (I've yet to figure out the formula) I get on a role and say some down-right  funny stuff.  I realize that I'm not being humble at all - but its the truth.

However, I have also come to realize that many times I tend to use humor to avoid serious moods or conversations.  The phrase "hiding behind humor" has kept popping into my mind.  The easy thing to do is crack a joke, but some things really deserve serious treatment and I'm too shy/uncomfortable addressing them.  This is on my list of things to work on for 2009.

Oh and I'm sure this girl may be annoying in person but I feel she captured the essence of "laughter".