Meme time for JK too

OK, another pesky meme tagging, this time my buddy Kevin has tagged me to name 5 things about myself that others probably don't know.  Here they are in no particular order:

• I lived in Caracas Venezuela for 6 years.  I moved there speaking no Spanish in order to force myself to learn it quickly, which I did.  The best method to learn Spanish while there?  Watching cartoons on TV in Spanish.  Surprisingly this worked very well due to the simple language used in most cartoons.
• I am a professional geophysicist by accident.  You got that right, my educational background is in what was then called Computer Science.  I started working in computer rooms for oil companies and picked up geophysical principles by watching their computer runs to the point that I was helping the staff geophysicists out so after 5 years I was promoted to a practicing geophysicist.  Honest.
• The high school I attended in Pasadena, Texas had one of the first computer curriculums in the country.  I attended that course for 3 hours per day for my last two years in high school and my final project was an inventory program for a men's clothing store.  It was written in COBOL and was still used by the store 5 years after I left high school.
• I began using WIndows CE devices the day they were released (the old Handheld PC).  I began writing about mobile technology at that time and was given an autographed copy of the first ever Microsoft Press book on Windows CE for those efforts.
• I once had to attend a one day meeting in Muscat, Oman that materialized at the last minute.  I fflew for 23 hours from Houston to Oman and arrived at my hotel at 3 am.  I attended the meeting all day, went directly from the meeting to my flight out at 7 pm for the 23 hour return trip.  I was so exhausted that when I changed airports in London I left my briefcase with my laptop inside at the security X-ray carousel.  I searched the entire airport before hearing my name paged in the airport to return to the security checkpoint, where I was given my briefcase with all contents intact.  Thank goodness this was pre-911.

I am not going to tag anyone else for this meme because the holidays have me too tired. :)

Comments

[Davidi]

Did you work with the Oil companies while in Caracas.It was a nice City but I visited last year and I think the current government has not helped a lot.

[jk]

Davidi, yes that's why I went to Caracas in the first place. It was a wonderful city at that time and I left when the country destabilized.