Okay, a friend asked me to give this a go so........ how tough can it be right?

Start easy and work my way in right..........

1. I'm 38 years old, never married, no kids.

2. Got a B.A. degree in Mass Communications (1990) and completed all but three credits and my thesis towards an M.A. in communications studies.

3. Dreamed as a boy of someday playing baseball for the Chicago Cubs. Senior year of college I decided that I had to try and walk onto the baseball team just to see "what may have been". I played in high school but wasn't good enough to get any offers or anything. Made the team on the final cut and got to play in just one game before I had to give it up because of class and work obligations. Got to play 2nd base just like my baseball idol, Ryne Sandberg, and struck out three times at the plate. Got to hit a 4th time in the top of the 9th inning and I hit a home run that won the game for us. I can't explain how great that felt.

4. I was engaged to my high school sweetheart but it just wasn't to be. We were simply too young to be doing something like that. We broke up when I caught her cheating on me with a friend of her younger brother (who was 13 years old).

5. Five different ladies have asked me to marry them over the years but I just couldn't do it. A couple of them I loved very dearly but I have a reason to be a bit gun shy about a commitment like that. If I can hold it together long enough to finish this post you'll find out why.

6. Parents divorced when I was 11 and my sister and I lived with our mom. Dad was an abusive prick to both mom and my sister but not with me until the summer we moved. He got mad at me for not mowing the lawn up to his standards and decided he would chain me to a tree in the front yard and take the belt to me. That son of a bitch died in '93 and I strive everyday of my life to be a better man than he was.

7. Like to keep things pretty private and actually I've opened up more in this past month or so here at Pixies than I have at any time in my life. I have sort of followed along in the background for a few years and just decided to dive in a while back. Hopefully I'm not annoying you all too much.

8. I'm a dog lover, always have been. Got a really special little guy who is mine now but I'm afraid I'll have to get rid of him soon.

9. Worked jobs in radio, television and at a newspaper while in college. Didn't have the looks to continue in TV and the voice was there for radio but the money wasn't going to be there.

Okay, number 10. This is sort of a tough one for me but what the hell. I see my friend has opened up here so I trust her instincts.

10. I was born with a chronic/terminal lung disease. At the time, kids usually didn't survive for very long with this affliction. Luckily I had a more mild case of it and was able to be relatively normal throughout my childhood and early adult years. It has caught up with me in a big way over the past few years and quite frankly I'm in sort of a daily struggle the magnitude of which some days I don't know if I can handle. I've had to leave a job that I didn't love but did enjoy the people I worked with and had moved up quite rapidly into "kinda big wig" position due to it. I'm currently on Soc Sec Disability because my lungs function at such a low level.

That's the main reason I've never married. I knew this was coming and I just couldn't bear to put someone I loved threw the pain of seeing me fail as is inevitable.

Can I go with an 11th one too?

11. I will break out crying every time I see the ending of the movie "Field of Dreams." Brings back the only good memories I had of my father. We used to play catch out in the front yard of our farm. He even wore an old time mit that was all fingers and no webbing. He gave me that memory and a love of that game that I just can't shake.

12. What the hell, may as well not stop now huh? I have sort of a list of goals I'd like to accomplish and recite them every morning as soon as I get done with my respiratory physical therapy to clear my lungs:

*Someday I will see Charlie Brown will kick that football.
*Someday I will see the Cubs win the World Series.
*Someday I will live to see them find a cure for cystic fibrosis.

Well, Charles Schulz has died. The Cubs have scared me a couple of times and well, I'm fading pretty quickly so I really hope that last one happens really soon.

__________________
It takes a gutless mouse to play only when the cat's away.

No love, no friendship, can cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark on it forever. ~~ Francois Mocuriac

Confucius say, "He who masturbate into cash register come into money."

An optimist looks at the glass and says it's half full. A pessimist looks at the glass and says it's half empty. A Cubs fan looks at the glass and says, "When's it gonna spill?"

Deus Impetitio Esuritori Nullus