Twenty Things You Should Know About Me
I was inspired to do this by a new LJ-friend. I'm going to leave this as a public post and put it in memories.
This is a list of things that clarify info on my profile page, or add to that info.
1. I have two sisters. One (Beth) is 11 months younger than me, the other (Bridget) is 9 years younger than me. For a number of reasons, I'm not on speaking terms with either of them now. A number of women who went to high school with Bridget have boys the same age as Kevin, so I hang out with her old friends more than she does.
2. I write a lot about my kids. Justin is the firstborn, Kevin is the younger one. There was a girl in-between the two, Kathleen, who was two years younger than Justin. She was born premature and died at 17 mos. (The full story is here.)
3. I love to cook, and I love to eat. Being a New Orleanian, dining out is a passion. I have my food blog, YatCuisine, where I write about food, cooking, and dining, and I cross-post that stuff to this LJ.
4. My friends list is HUGE. If you look at it closely, it's 70% communities. Many of those comms are redundant or very low-traffic. Don't let that large number deter you from friending me. I always read my friends' LJs first, then come back to read the communities.
5. I'm a published author. I've written a book on the history of the Canal Street streetcar line in New Orleans, and I've co-authored a couple of computer books over the years that are long out-of-print. I've also written articles for numerous computer magazines over the years. I've written a novel that I'd love to get published at some point.
6. I write erotica. I got started writing erotic short stories when I tackled the transition from writing non-fiction to writing fiction. I like toying with where the line between "tasteful" erotica and smut is.
7. I know a lot about computers, but my passion is teaching. I earned a degree in secondary education because I firmly believed I could be a better social studies teacher than the football coaches I was subjected to in high school. I taught for four years in a coed, Catholic high school in New Orleans after graduation. Since that time, I've always taught computer-related classes here and there, to keep my skills sharp. Nowadays, I travel 2-4 weeks a month, teaching computer classes that deal with large-scale storage (disk) systems.
8. I'm a shameless flirt in my posts here and my comments on LJ. I'm usually pretty good at reading when someone wants to flirt and when they're not interested. Sometimes I mis-judge this. I get over it quickly when I'm un-friended as a consequence of my mis-judgement.
9. For all that I'm a flirt on-line, I'm really pretty shy IRL. Seriously. I rarely initiate conversations in public, preferring to keep to myself.
10. I'm part-owner of two restaurants in suburban New Orleans. Their name is "T. L. Starke's," and one location is in Metairie, the other in Kenner. T. L. Starke's specializes in gourmet burgers, steaks, chicken sandwiches, and salads.
11. I tend to be on-line a lot when I'm traveling. The computer classes I teach are structured where I lecture half the day and the students do lab exercises the other half. When they're doing lab, I supervise. These are smart folks, so usually that means I sit in the front of the room and do stuff on my own. That's when I do most of my LJ-reading and posting. When I'm home on weekends, posting is off-and-on, depending on what sort of stuff I have to do for the restaurants or around the house.
12. I'm a very public person when it comes to the Internet. Because I'm a computer professional, my resume and a lot of my personal information is easily available. This works for me--I've gotten a number of contracts over the years because people know what I'm cabable of doing. While I may be a very public person, I understand the desire of many friends to be much more anonymous in their Internet dealings and I respect that.
13. I've been chatting on-line, using ICQ, AIM, and Yahoo, for over ten years. I've met on-line friends IRL literally from all over the world. It's fun to finally meet up with folks I've talked to for months, sometimes even years. Meeting people IRL does not mean sex, mind you. Not that it wouldn't be fun in some cases, but I'm OK with just lunch.
14. I was raised Catholic. I've given up on Christianity for some time now, but I'm not an angry "recovering Catholic." I wasn't abused by a clergyman. I don't hate the pope. I'm not bitter about being raised in a Catholic household.
15. Speaking of religion, I don't care much for fundamentalists or evangelists of any religion, and that includes pagan fundamentalists. Christian fundigelicals get on my nerves because I've been hearing how I'm going to hell from them all my life (as a Catholic and as a pagan). Non-Christian fundamentalists are just as close-minded as their Christian counterparts, and I really don't have the patience to wade through all of that.
16. I'm a meme-ho. I enjoy both the good and silly memes that float around LJ. If I'm in intense meme-ho mode, I'll do my best to put them behind lj-cuts.
17. I'm doing the "A Year In Pictures" thing for 2007. Sometimes I get behind a day or two and post a couple of pics at a time to catch up.
18. I've become quite the SMS text-messaging junkie over the years. I enjoy texting friends. It's a good way to not be totally alone when I'm traveling.
19. I have a passion for history. It's what I majored in (well, Social Studies education). My passion for history manifests itself in an intense interest in cemeteries in particular.
20. I am a Freemason. I belong to two Lodges in the New Orleans area, as well as the Scottish Rite.
This is a list of things that clarify info on my profile page, or add to that info.
1. I have two sisters. One (Beth) is 11 months younger than me, the other (Bridget) is 9 years younger than me. For a number of reasons, I'm not on speaking terms with either of them now. A number of women who went to high school with Bridget have boys the same age as Kevin, so I hang out with her old friends more than she does.
2. I write a lot about my kids. Justin is the firstborn, Kevin is the younger one. There was a girl in-between the two, Kathleen, who was two years younger than Justin. She was born premature and died at 17 mos. (The full story is here.)
3. I love to cook, and I love to eat. Being a New Orleanian, dining out is a passion. I have my food blog, YatCuisine, where I write about food, cooking, and dining, and I cross-post that stuff to this LJ.
4. My friends list is HUGE. If you look at it closely, it's 70% communities. Many of those comms are redundant or very low-traffic. Don't let that large number deter you from friending me. I always read my friends' LJs first, then come back to read the communities.
5. I'm a published author. I've written a book on the history of the Canal Street streetcar line in New Orleans, and I've co-authored a couple of computer books over the years that are long out-of-print. I've also written articles for numerous computer magazines over the years. I've written a novel that I'd love to get published at some point.
6. I write erotica. I got started writing erotic short stories when I tackled the transition from writing non-fiction to writing fiction. I like toying with where the line between "tasteful" erotica and smut is.
7. I know a lot about computers, but my passion is teaching. I earned a degree in secondary education because I firmly believed I could be a better social studies teacher than the football coaches I was subjected to in high school. I taught for four years in a coed, Catholic high school in New Orleans after graduation. Since that time, I've always taught computer-related classes here and there, to keep my skills sharp. Nowadays, I travel 2-4 weeks a month, teaching computer classes that deal with large-scale storage (disk) systems.
8. I'm a shameless flirt in my posts here and my comments on LJ. I'm usually pretty good at reading when someone wants to flirt and when they're not interested. Sometimes I mis-judge this. I get over it quickly when I'm un-friended as a consequence of my mis-judgement.
9. For all that I'm a flirt on-line, I'm really pretty shy IRL. Seriously. I rarely initiate conversations in public, preferring to keep to myself.
10. I'm part-owner of two restaurants in suburban New Orleans. Their name is "T. L. Starke's," and one location is in Metairie, the other in Kenner. T. L. Starke's specializes in gourmet burgers, steaks, chicken sandwiches, and salads.
11. I tend to be on-line a lot when I'm traveling. The computer classes I teach are structured where I lecture half the day and the students do lab exercises the other half. When they're doing lab, I supervise. These are smart folks, so usually that means I sit in the front of the room and do stuff on my own. That's when I do most of my LJ-reading and posting. When I'm home on weekends, posting is off-and-on, depending on what sort of stuff I have to do for the restaurants or around the house.
12. I'm a very public person when it comes to the Internet. Because I'm a computer professional, my resume and a lot of my personal information is easily available. This works for me--I've gotten a number of contracts over the years because people know what I'm cabable of doing. While I may be a very public person, I understand the desire of many friends to be much more anonymous in their Internet dealings and I respect that.
13. I've been chatting on-line, using ICQ, AIM, and Yahoo, for over ten years. I've met on-line friends IRL literally from all over the world. It's fun to finally meet up with folks I've talked to for months, sometimes even years. Meeting people IRL does not mean sex, mind you. Not that it wouldn't be fun in some cases, but I'm OK with just lunch.
14. I was raised Catholic. I've given up on Christianity for some time now, but I'm not an angry "recovering Catholic." I wasn't abused by a clergyman. I don't hate the pope. I'm not bitter about being raised in a Catholic household.
15. Speaking of religion, I don't care much for fundamentalists or evangelists of any religion, and that includes pagan fundamentalists. Christian fundigelicals get on my nerves because I've been hearing how I'm going to hell from them all my life (as a Catholic and as a pagan). Non-Christian fundamentalists are just as close-minded as their Christian counterparts, and I really don't have the patience to wade through all of that.
16. I'm a meme-ho. I enjoy both the good and silly memes that float around LJ. If I'm in intense meme-ho mode, I'll do my best to put them behind lj-cuts.
17. I'm doing the "A Year In Pictures" thing for 2007. Sometimes I get behind a day or two and post a couple of pics at a time to catch up.
18. I've become quite the SMS text-messaging junkie over the years. I enjoy texting friends. It's a good way to not be totally alone when I'm traveling.
19. I have a passion for history. It's what I majored in (well, Social Studies education). My passion for history manifests itself in an intense interest in cemeteries in particular.
20. I am a Freemason. I belong to two Lodges in the New Orleans area, as well as the Scottish Rite.