As tagged by Phil some time ago …

The Rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
5. (added by Soob) Present an image of martial discord from whatever period or situation you’d like.

As a libertarian, I don’t believe in following rules for their own sake, so I’ll skip tagging others. OK, 7 facts:

1. I have never broken a bone in my body. The only time I have injured a bone was on December 14, 2007. I was drilling into corrugated iron with a 4 mm drillbit; it got blunt; I got impatient and forced it, and when the drillbit snapped the stub punched through the middle of my thumbnail (and all the way through my thumb) at full speed. This made an unbelievably neat, clean hole straight through the end of my thumb bone (the X-ray was awesome). Technically, it was a compound fracture.
2. When concentrating at my desk, I always have to chew on something, preferably something metal. This chewing is a replacement for nail-biting, which I stopped overnight, cold turkey, in 2005.
3. Possibly the most dangerous thing that I have done is learn to breathe fire. I acquired the necessary skill (aspirating liquid into a fine mist) four years before I actually did it for the first time.
4. Several years ago cooking was a major hobby of mine, so to build my skills I worked as a cook in a cafe for a year, baking cakes, slices, biscuits, scones, and breakfasts. The job started at 5.30 in the morning, proving that I CAN get up early on a regular basis!
5. The highest altitude I have ever achieved (without an aeroplane) is 1690 metres, Fanthams Peak, Taranaki. I took the first picture on the article from the house where Phil and I lived at the time.
6. The best money I ever made was participating in an asthma study in 2003. The study consisted of five 24-hour stays overnight at a private hospital here in Wellington: private rooms, hotel-quality food, soft drinks, TV, etc. There were no injections or blood tests, just lung-function tests every four hours. I got $500 per stay.
7. I am a fan of Double Your Dating by David DeAngelo. His e-book changed my life after a breakup I had four years ago. I have a secret (anonymous) blog where I expound on my thoughts about dating and relationships.

And now for an image of martial discord:

Actually, this is a peaceful picture, although it evokes the Cold War. Two F-15s (foreground) scramble to intercept two Mig-29s in 1989. IIRC, the Mig-29s were the first ever to fly in American airspace, on their way to a Canadian airshow. The interception was just a practise.

Posted by Luke H on Saturday, July 19th, 2008 at 2:00 am.