25 things you didn’t know about me.

1. I am constantly amazed that people can arise before 9:00 am with a smile on thier face.
2. I have been preforming puppets since I was in high school (early ’80s).
3. I have over 400 movies in my DVD collection.
4. I have no favorite Star Trek. I like ’em equally. TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT
5. I count aluminum cans for a living.
6. I collected pop cans as a child.
7. I currently collect trains.
8. I am my own boss. I work twice as hard as a 9-5er.
9. I always wanted to be Spider-Man. This really hasn’t changed now that I’m 40ish
10. I still read comic books.
11. I am constatnly amazed that my wife fell in love with me (even more amazed that she’s stuck around for 20+ years).
12. I have never owned a “new” car.
13. I am named in honor of my grandfathers as is my oldest son ( a family tradition).
14. I can decorate 2 christmas trees using nothing but train shaped ornaments.
15. My heritage is completely Dutch.
16. I cannot fathom spending money on designer jeans.
17. I still own shirts that predate my meeting my wife.
18. I love it when I share nostalgia with my children and they in turn think it’s “cool” (ie DVDs of shows I watched as a child, games I played as a teen, comics that I still read)
19. Every cat that I have owned (not necessarily that has lived in my home) has been named Phread (pronounced Fred)
20. I have never lived in a state the does not border the Mississippi River.

21. The first non-GM vehicle that I owned was a Plymouth Voyager, my daughter wrecked it.

22. My favorite color is green.

23. EVERY girl I ever dated in college married the next guy she dated after she broke up with me including my wife.

24. I still have my childhood teddy bear.

25. I share my birthday with George Lucas, Robert Zemeckis, and Jamestown, Virginia

Things that happened on May 14 throughout history according to Wikipedia

1607 – Jamestown, Virginia is settled as an English colony.

1610 – Assassination of Henri IV of France, bringing Louis XIII to the throne.

1643 – Four-year-old Louis XIV becomes King of France upon the death of his father, Louis XIII.

1747 – A British fleet under Admiral George Anson defeats the French at first battle of Cape Finisterre.

1796 – Edward Jenner administers the first smallpox vaccination.

1804 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition departs from Camp Dubois and begins its historic journey by traveling up the Missouri River.

1861 – The Canellas meteorite, an 859-gram chondrite-type meteorite, strikes the earth near Barcelona, Spain.

1863 – American Civil War: The Battle of Jackson takes place.

1913 – New York Governor William Sulzer approves the charter for the Rockefeller Foundation, which begins operations with a $100 million donation from John D. Rockefeller.

1925 – Virginia Woolf‘s novel Mrs Dalloway is published.

1927 – The University of Chicago‘s local collegiate organization, Phi Sigma, becomes incorporated under Illinois law as Eta Sigma Phi, the National Honorary Classical Fraternity.

1935 – The Philippines ratifies an independence agreement.

1939 – Lina Medina becomes the world’s youngest confirmed mother in medical history at the age of five.

1940 – World War II: Rotterdam is bombed by the German Luftwaffe.

1940 – World War II: The Netherlands surrenders to Germany.

1943 – Sinking of the Australian Hospital Ship Centaur off the coast of Queensland, by a Japanese submarine.

1948 – Israel is declared to be an independent state and a provisional government is established. Immediately after the declaration, Israel is attacked by the neighboring Arab states, triggering the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

1955 – Cold War: Eight communist bloc countries, including the Soviet Union, sign a mutual defense treaty called the Warsaw Pact.

1961 – American civil rights movement: The Freedom Riders bus is fire-bombed near Anniston, Alabama, and the civil rights protesters are beaten by an angry mob.

1970 – The Red Army Faction is established in Germany.

1973 – Human Space Flight: Skylab, the United States’ first space station, is launched. It is the last launch of the Saturn V rocket. 

1986 – Pride of Baltimore lost at sea.

1988 – Carrollton bus collision: a drunk driver going the wrong way on Interstate 71 near Carrollton, Kentucky, United States hits a converted school bus carrying a church youth group. The crash and ensuing fire kill 27. 

2005 – The former USS America (CV-66), a decommissioned supercarrier of the United States Navy, is deliberately sunk in the Atlantic Ocean after four weeks of live-fire exercises. She is the largest ship ever to be disposed of as a target in a military exercise.