Tagged – 5 things about Jason Alba you didn’t know

Alex C. Rudloff, cofounder of Emurse.com, must have thought that I needed a break from all of my serious, drab blogging and has tagged me in a little game that’s going around the blogsphere. I’ve kind of dreaded getting tagged because I have so much other stuff to blog about but in the true spirit of relationship building, it really is important to take some time and share some “non-business” stuff… I’m sure there’s a lesson in there somewhere 🙂

This is basically “put up a post with 5 things that my readers don’t know about me.” I’ve seen some of the blogs that I follow put up a post on this and is has fascinated me… so here’s some meaty info about me that you should put in JibberJobber (you do keep a Jason Alba profile in JibberJobber, don’t you? After all, my birthday was disclosed about a month ago ;)):

1. I’ve lived outside of the continental US for 6 years – all in Latin American places (split between Puerto Rico and Mexico). I moved to Puerto Rico in the 6th grade and took Spanish I for the entire 4 years (long story), and eventually honed my language skills in Mexico where I can proudly say that I became fluent. Its been a while and my skills are rusty, but I love Spanish. In fact, some of my favorite music is Gloria Estefan’s spanish stuff – it is so amazing.
2. When I met the girl that would become my wife I was 15, she was 13. We were great friends for about 3 years (not high-school sweethearts), then we both moved away from each other for 3 years, and got engaged the first day that we saw eachother after that 3 year period. Sounds nuts but we had kept in touch with (mostly) letters and phone calls… now we have 4 kids, been married over 10 years… and they said it wouldn’t last 😉
3. I never really wanted to blog. In May I went to a local bloggers conference and asked “why in the world should I blog?” My thoughts were “I don’t have anything to say,” “no one wants to hear from me,” and “I don’t even have a topic.” But look at me now, I’m a junkie… I can’t not think about blogging! bonus factoid: I don’t listen to podcasts much … I guess I’d be called a slow adopter.
4. I am living my dream. I always wanted to be an entrepreneur but went the corporate route. I thought I’d love to come across the “better moustrap” but figured I wasn’t creative enough. So I went to school (for a long time) and went the small corporate route… and was appropriately rewarded. But it was always for someone else, and that just didn’t satisfy me. Putting my heart into JibberJobber has allowed me to learn more about marketing, design, and customer service while really giving to those that can’t afford to give anymore (that’s why the free version is so functional, with no strings attached).
5. I love critters. Just a couple of nights ago I was at a Christmas party where someone was introducing me to someone else as “the critter guy.” When I was a kid growing up in northern California I’d spend hours every day turning over rocks, and we’d always have some kind of reptile or amphibian at our house. They are harder to find now (not sure if that’s because of where I live, or just because I’m getting old and slow ;)) but I love to take my kids out in the hills and hunt for snakes and lizards. Right now we have 3 snakes that are going dormant for the winter, and I secretly hope that one of them has babies next year 🙂

Bonus Point: No place is home for my wife and I. We both grew up moving with the government and never lived anywhere very long. In fact, when we first got married we lived in one city for 9 years (way longer than anywhere else we had lived) and could almost consider that home!

Thanks for taking a few minutes to learn more about me… here are some of my buddies that you might want to learn about (all links go to their 5 things):

Alex Rudloff – I met Alex a few months back when we both launched our sites around the same time (kind of). We hit it off pretty good and have a neat/fun relationship. I’m jealous because he lives in Florida, where I’d rather be 😉

Janet Meiner – Hm, looks like she tagged me here! I missed this post but its fun to read about her “skills”…

Chris Knudsen – local business expert – he’s someone to watch in the next few years. He has a great blog with an emphasis on strategic business.

Russ Page – I had lunch with Russ about a month ago and was able to tap into his wealth of PR and marketing wisdom. Russ knows more about PR than I’ll ever know.

Devin Thorpe – the MidMarketMaven – I had breakfast with Devan a few weeks ago and was amazed at his knowledge in the finance arena … duh, considering he’s spent his entire career there and I barely got a C in my finance class in the MBA program!

And, here are my buddies that I’d like to learn more about (Tag! You’re It!):

Thom Singer – author of Some Assembly Required and wrapping up a Praise Other’s project for the year – Thom has been an inspiration to me this year and I’m excited to have the opportunity to meet him in Austin in a couple of weeks!

David Monreal – an HR blogger out of Spain, I see a number of posts from him about industry news that he takes into Spanish and comments for his readers – its a great service as he acts as the industry watch dog. I challenge him to write in Spanish but translate to English 😉

David Maister – just asked to replace the famous Jack Welsh in a newspaper column, this dude has a great blog, message and following. I love what he writes on leadership and would love to know what’s behind the professionalism and see if he has a more casual background 🙂

Carl Chapman – its no secret that Carl is a good friend, but I’ve learned so much cool stuff about him from regular instant message chats that I’d love for him to post some of his personal facts on his blog – he is a down-to-earth genuine guy that fears no one at the poker table 😉

Rob Merrill – one of my favorite recruiters and networkers in Utah, Rob is very very sharp and well-rounded. What are his darkest secrets, we wonder?