I’ve been tagged for this meme by Doug Haslam and Geoff Livingston (what’s with all you PR people?). I don’t typically participate in memes as I think it generally dilutes the quality of the body of content, but I’m making an exception this time. If for no other reason, I’ll stop getting tagged by PR people. :-)

So the deal is I need to tell you eight things you probably don’t know about me. But you already know everything, right? I mean, I’m pretty transparent and fairly public. I bet you didn’t know, though that:

• I used to live in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo (I lived there when it was Zaïre, before civil war destroyed the country and the name change occurred). I was a missionary kid from ages 8-12. What fascinates me is looking at the Google satellite imagery and seeing how built up it has become, though if you zoom in you can certainly see third world written all over it:
  
  View Larger Map
• My very first baseball game was on June 15, 1990. The Boston Red Sox were visiting the Baltimore Orioles at the old Memorial Stadium. Pete Harnisch pitched for the O’s and Wes Gardner pitched for the Sox. The Orioles lost 4-3 long before I was a Red Sox fan.
• I’ve at very minimum been in airports and in many cases spent significant time in 16 countries: The United States, Canada, Mexico, South Korea, Japan, England, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Cameroon, DRC (Zaire), Rwanda, Tanzania, and Kenya. Likewise, I’ve been in 27 states: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, the District of Columbia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, Michigan, Illinois, Nevada, California, and Washington.
• I had tickets to the New Years Eve Dave Letterman show in 1996 and gave them up because I was going to be out of town.
• As a kid, I planned to attend the U.S. Naval Academy and go on to fly F-14s off aircraft carriers. Then my eyesight went bad.
• I once bought a girl a $99 gold sapphire ring on the first date.
• My favorite coffee is Peets followed by Green Mountain Coffee. My favorite beer is Resurrection, from the Brewers Art in Baltimore, followed by San Francisco beer, Anchor Steam.
• I’ve owned a 1987 Suzuki Samurai, a 1987 Chevy S-10, a 1992 Toyota Tercel, a 1996 Chevy Cavalier and a 2001 Ford Taurus (current).

Now my time to tag: Chris Brogan, Dave Zatz, Jim Kukral, Marina Martin, Shana Glickfield, Alex de Carvalho, Alex Hillman and Jim Long.