I was TAGGED by both eclectic idealist and Grant Bailie.

Rules:
"Each player starts with eight random facts/habits or embarrassing things about themselves. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog."

At the end of this blog I will TAG eight of my friends and ask them to do the same.  Happy trails....

1) I've only met my biological father one time in my life, though I've gotten to know several of his/my family members fairly well in recent years and have driven by his house numerous times.

2) You might know me as a fairly intelligent, super-duper liberal.  And it's true: I haven't voted for a Republican in years.  Yet in 1984 (my first election) I cast my vote for Ronald Reagan and in 1988 I voted for George Bush Sr. (I've done my penance since, believe me!)

3) I've been enrolled in college (sometimes full-time and sometimes with just one course) pretty much continuously since 1987, earning more than one degree and changing my major nine times (undeclared, journalism, history, chemistry, mathematics, justice systems: corrections, English, religious education, sacred theology)

4) I was a bartender for, and then manager of, a gay night club for nearly two years (1991-1992).

5) I met my wife 21 years ago, when I was a dishwasher and she was a waitress at the same country club.  But we didn't marry until October 2005.

6) As a child, at least for quite a while, I would always check behind the shower curtain before I used the toilet.

7) For a few years I taught New Testament Greek, Biblical Hebrew, music theory, conflict resolution and "Adventures in Meditation" to prison inmates.  When planes struck the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001, I was in the Horizon Interfaith dormitory at Marion Correctional Institution with a group of 48 Christian, Jewish and Muslim inmates.

8) I, too, have been incarcerated.

Now comes the fun part.  I'm TAGGING eight of my friends.  Consider yourselves lucky that I'm not TAGGING all of you (lol).

Mrs. Jesus Crisis
Pierre Boulez
Dark
Tropic of Panzer
Damien
Jamar
Will Northerner
Squirrels Are Delicious (formerly known as Harmonica Lewinsky)