Too much about me

This might be more painful for me than a root canal. However, one of my three followers who is a relative asked, so she will receive. With no Novocain on hand, I am calling on a single glass of rum and coke to complete a list of 25 things about me.

Seems it is a pretty big deal these days on Facebook. So, here goes...

1. I can only remember one spanking that I received from my father. It was after I took a dump in the front yard while playing with neighbors. I was 4 and told by my older brother that I couldn't move because we were playing freeze tag.

2. As a 4-foot-3 third-grader, I realized I had little chance of becoming a pro basketball player and changed my aspirations to becoming a horse jockey. I won a speech contest talking about it in front of more than a hundred people. However, I have never ridden a winning horse.

3. I had an awful speech impediment and wicked crossed eye until I was in the fifth grade. Both were corrected when I had eye surgery as an 11-year-old. No one could explain why my lisp left me after the operation.

4. After my mom crashed our station wagon into a Winchell's Donuts, I asked one of the employees for a rainbow sprinkled donut from the back seat. They handed it to me through the car window.

5. In sixth grade, I waited with my brother Jason and my grandparents in a Chicago shoe store for three hours for the first delivery of Air Jordans. We proudly wore our new kicks on the plane ride back to California.

6. At a seventh grade dance, I was named the Best Modern Dancer after copying the moves of a classmate. He didn't talk to me for days after I collected the $10 prize.

7. I participated in a 5K race with my eighth grade PE teacher. He is now the Superintendent in the school district I teach in.

8. As latch key kids, my brothers and I would spend our summers home alone during the day. We killed our boredom by fishing over a wall in our neighbors gold fish pond. She had no fish left at the end of the summers and thought she had a cat problem.

9. My dad started a rather large fire in the kitchen by throwing water on a grease fire while making hamburgers for us boys. It was one of the first signs for me that he was human.

10. During a summer trip to Northern California, 90 percent of my body was taken over by a rash from poison oak. The next two weeks were the most uncomfortable in my life.

11. As a sophomore in high school, four friends and I snuck into a water park at night. We thought it would be cool to go down the water slides on skateboards. It was great fun until we reached the end with it's 8-foot drop into an empty pool. My knee still hurts from that fall.

12. I went to three proms in high school and never reached second-base with my dates. I am not sure what second-base is, but I know I didn't get there.

13. I lost my virginity in the house of one of my high school teachers. Thankfully, not with the teacher.

14. My football career ended by playing on a team that became the school's fourth section champion. The championship had little to do with my playing ability.

15. Trying to look cool, I got my ear pierced in college. One week later and with my ear three times it's normal size, Danny from Dad Gone Mad sat in a chair in the school's hospital laughing his ass off while a nurse carefully removed the ear ring. I never put one back in.

16. Working as a runner for ABC Sports, I walked in front of the camera on live TV during a pro bowling tournament. I was quickly fired and removed from the bowling alley.

17. The day I graduated from college, my high school football coach called me at 6 a.m. and offered me a teaching and coaching job. I was a little hung over but still managed to accept the offer without Coach noticing the state I was in.

18. After leaving teaching for three years to be a stay-at-home dad, I worked at a local newspaper at night as a sportswriter. During one summer on the job, the paper paid me to river raft down the Kern River, climb to the top of Mt. Whitney, hunt for wild boar, fish for Yellowtail off the Channel Islands in California, and jump out of an airplane from 13,000 feet.

19. On a trip I made after my first divorce to a mountain resort, I visited a bar after a day of fishing. While there, one of the other patrons asked if I was Peter Billingsly from the movie "A Christmas Story". I said yes and didn't pay for a drink the whole weekend. I even signed a few napkins, "Have fun and stay single. The You'll Shoot Your Eye out Kid."

20. Kern, Savannah, Shelby and Alani give me the greatest satisfaction and joy each day. They also bring me to a level of frustration that I never experienced before being a father.

21. I ran one LA Marathon in 2002 and walked it in 2003 with my former wife because she thought it looked easy watching me. Hearing her whine, cry and complain made the nine hour day miserable and enjoyable at the same time. It wasn't as easy as she thought.

22. While on my first date with The Most Beautiful Woman in the World, I couldn't remember where I parked my car in the Los Angeles Dodgers' parking lot. It ended up being the best part of the night as we spent over an hour talking as we made our way through a maze of 40,000 cars looking for mine. We still laugh at me telling her, "I feel like an ass for saying this... I have no idea where we parked."

23. I walked away from the coolest job I ever had three years ago to take over as the head football coach at my school. I was a college golf coach and played four days a week at some of the best courses in Southern California. I also got paid a helluva lot more than I do now. No regrets, though.

24. I have been asked by a reader and my daughter to control my language in life and in my posts. I haven't uttered any bad words so far in this and I am doing much better in my home. Pretty fucking good for me.

25. This post has taken me so much more time to complete than any I have written before... two days. At last, it is done.