Five things you didn’t know about me…

…and probably don’t care about, but I got tagged by Deelip Menezes and now I need to tell you five things about me that you probably didn’t know. Thanks Deelip…I have been delinquent on my blog and this helped get me back to it.

I come from a big family, seven siblings, four sisters and two brothers. I’m third from the youngest. I have the least hair of all of them. Wait, if you see my picture on the Alibre web site, you may be aware of that.

One of my goals is to learn two more languages before I die. I have traveled internationally quite a bit and am extremely impressed with how most everyone else speaks at least two, English and their native tongue. I am also embarrassed that we Americans almost always speak only one. Many Dutch and Swedes speak five languages, which is amazing to me. I think this is a huge issue, and should be for the US in general, as it contributes to our lack of understanding other cultures. It will only become a bigger liability as the world becomes increasingly connected.

Like Evan Yares, and many others involved in technology or the fields of computer science or mathematics, or other high-tech fields, I play guitar, or attempt to play guitar. Luckily, it’s a little easier for me because I played the trumpet for many years, getting to the level of second trumpet in the University of Texas at Austin jazz ensemble. I never got to play lead because at that level you have to be able to wail out a G above high C on a moments notice, and I never could do that reliably. The jazz ensemble is great today I heard them recently, I think maybe far better than we were, or maybe we were better than I thought. This is a big bad with five saxes, 4-5 trombones, 4-5 trumpets and a rhythm section, like the bands led by Buddy Rich or Stan Kenton. It was fun being the only engineering student among the 18 – 20 or so other members of the group, and I was always hanging on barely, since I was always coming off a tough test in dynamics or fluid mechanics and they had practiced all day every day. Who knows though, maybe I was getting better practice than I thought: interestingly, in the documentary "Jazz" by Ken Burns, Wynton Marsalis likens jazz to "high math," so maybe fluid mechanics problems actually offset my lack of practice at that point. Doubtful, as the closest most jazz trumpet players come to the study of fluids is emptying their spit valve. If you have never heard a band like this up close you need to do it, the sheer power of 15 horns just screaming in perfect time is electric without any amplification; tight. Every time I hear that live it raises the hair on the back of my neck. Actually though, I wished I had spent all those years playing guitar, it’s kind of hard to be sitting around at a party or in the evening and break out the trumpet for a little mellow entertainment.

I spent the night out in the woods outside of Santa Fe at about 11,000 feet on the night before my wedding. It snowed 8” or so. Luckily I had a lot of good gear and slept well. I had gone out for a hike to Mt Baldy which reaches to over 12,000 ft. Northern New Mexico is amazing that way, at least to me. You don’t typically think of it being that high altitude unless you are familiar with it. For instance, the base of the Santa Fe Ski Basin which is about 15 minutes out of the city square in Santa Fe at 10,350 ft. is just 100 ft. below the peak of Rendezvous Mountain at Jackson Hole (10,450 ft.). Of course, Jackson Hole has over 4,000 ft. of vertical and Santa Fe has under 2,000. Anyway, back to my story, it was a relief to lay down in a relatively dry spout under a fallen tree after what had turned into a nine our epic hike where I was post-holing to my hips in the late Spring snow I had not expected, silly me. I should have known that without snow shoes it would be near impossible, especially after some guy flew past me about five hours into it. It started getting dark and I was mad because I knew my wife to be was waiting for me and probably was not going to be happy either. I had spotty cell phone reception and got through to her briefly telling her I couldn’t get back. It got dark very fast and then it was hopeless, so I just found the dry spot and rolled out my sleeping bag, pulled off my boots and the sheer relief from just resting was heaven. Four hours later I was awoken by snow hitting my head, but I threw my coat over and just enjoyed the sound of the snow and wind. I awoke around 6:00am, to a slowly brightening forest, completely entombed in snow. As I sat up, I heard a strange sound, then I heard it again, it was clearly someone shouting. I was doing fine and was a little tired so I wasn’t expecting anyone, but I suspected at that moment they may have been expecting me, so I started whistling really loud like you would at a football game, and out of the trees right then this guys skis up to me and says, ”Are you the guy getting married?” “Yes, that’s me,” I said. He responds with, “You could have just said no!” So we hiked out with a crew of other mountain rescue folks, who I was very embarrassed to have been the cause of rousting so early. My wife called them, but she was just trying to help and thought I could be frozen out there so I have to take responsibility. Actually, they were disappointed because there was no rescue or drama, I was just five feet off the trail about 20 minutes from the trailhead. Anyway, the wedding went off as planned with no delays and we’re happily married today. It’s our little wedding story.

In 1975 my parents sponsored a Vietnamese family of six escaping from South Vietnam after the collapse. My father was in the air force and had met a young Vietnamese pilot in the mid 60s when the US was bringing them in for training. Years later, in 1971, my father went to Vietnam for a year and reconnected with his family. When Saigon was close to falling, our Vietnamese friend had sent his family to Thailand to escape where they spent time in a refugee camp. He stayed on, literally escaping on the day Tan Son Nhut air force base fell. He told a story of chaos and panic as anyone who could fly just ran and got in any plane they could as North Vietnamese troops were closing in and literally shooting at them from the periphery of the base. Some of the planes had flat tires or were low on fuel yet he miraculously was able to take off and escape. Surely he would have been executed as a senior South Vietnamese military officer had he been caught. We knew none of this at the time, and his wife and four kids, none of whom spoke English, had come to live with us. The reunion happened in our living room one night. Lot’s of crying and laughing. So we went on to spend a about a year together, my brothers and I living in the garage with Vinh and Lam, and my sisters living with Mai Loan and Thien Huong, and the parents in one of the bedrooms. I can still count to ten in Vietnamese, and know some other words I won’t mention here. I think of it as my year in Saigon, Texas.

That’s it. I haven’t thought of who else to tag. I asked a few people before tagging them and they said no, but I will keep trying.