Meme Tagged

My good friend Steven Hudson at Winextra 'tagged' me with this meme...

Initially I was a bit uneasy - then I started looking in the dark corners of my sordid life ... turns out I remembered stuff that even I didn't know. :) Well, most of it is true...

Eight things you might not know about me...

1. As a mini-kid I spent a summer on Kodiak Island, AK with family friends while my parents worked a halibut trawler, The Yukon. (Which was prominently 'featured' in a picture of the great earthquake - in the middle of the street, downtown Anchorage (I think.))
   
   
2. Learned FORTRAN 4 (1970-71) - Wrote a Tic-Tac-Toe program that could not be beaten - best you could hope for was a tie. A special subroutine was called so that 'turns' could be entered in the washing machine sized 'keyboard' interface of the IBM 360 (instead of having to re-run the punch card deck with the new turn.)
   
   
3. Junior Achievement "President of the Year" 1970-71 (Lansing Michigan) - Heady times when rules were made to be bent... Leading was just the willingness to take one more step than the folks standing next to you. (Object lesson: There are no friends in business and there should be no business among friends.)
   
   
4. Summered in Guadalajara Mexico
   
   1972: Worked with Don Pablo Muños, "El Quetero" (The Rocketman") - Speaking Spanish faster than any person I have ever heard Don Pablo showed me the ins and outs of making firework displays, Castillos.
   
   1973: Set up a darkroom in the hotel bathroom. At night processed B&W film and printed pictures. During the day of took photographs of 'Street People' - gritty, grainy, high contrast images of real people making their way in daily life.
   
   
5. Attended the Saturday, January 20, 1973 Counter-Inaugural March in Washington D.C. - No More War! - Caused traffic tie-ups by claiming the van I was driving was stalled at intersections.
   
   
6. Summer of 1975 - Ran away to the Circus Kirk - Three Rings Under The Big Top - World's Largest Brass Band - weeks on end of 18+ hour days, wet tired hungry and very sleepy - and then ran away from the circus
   
   
7. Evening Announcer for WKLA AM & FM in Ludington MI. 'The Captain' offered a late night array of low rumbling 'Barry White' intros to some of the coolest and hottest Jazz ever heard in north west Michigan.
   
   
8. Last and certainly not least, there is a roman numeral after my son's name ... VIII ... which of course means the roman numeral after my name is VII, my father was VI, his father was V, etc.

...from this point on this is a self-appointing meme. If you like the premise please feel free to self-tag and post your 8 things list.