Five Things About Me

I have been officially tagged by Mojoey at Deep Thoughts with a meme. Being new to this I can only hope that I am getting this right by telling five things about me that readers may or may not know, and then tagging others with the same challenge.

As this blog is relatively new, supplying five unknown facts about myself is relatively easy so, here goes:

Fact One--I am a backslider:

Believe it or not, I was raised a hardcore fundamentalist Christian. My father was a fervent follower of the teachings of a man by the name of Garner Ted Armstrong and drummed the teaching of Garner Ted into me on a daily basis.

Among other things, I was taught that Pope Jon Paul II was the anti-Christ and that it is a sin to eat pork, celebrate Christmas, celebrate Easter, celebrate damned near anything for that matter. Pops also taught me that going to church on Sunday instead of Saturday is a sin, and that everything in the Bible (King James Version) is literal truth. I had to do a complete study course on the Bible under his direction.

I saw my first book burning when I was twelve when Dad burnt a Time Life book on the evolution of man that I had gotten from school. He also beat me senseless for having the book, and refused to pay for it because it shouldn't have been printed in the first place. Dad then arranged to have the demons in me expelled.

Fact Two--I am a widower.

In 1991 I married a wonderful woman whom I had been dating for four years and living in sin with for one. We produced two wonderful children before her death in 1994 due to an inoperable brain tumor.

I met her in college, told my room mate that she was the woman I would marry, and never looked back. My time with her was the most wonderful period of my life.

Fact Three--I'm a Vet.

I served in the U.S. Army for six years after high school. During that time I did nuclear missile security in Germany, and was stationed with the 82nd Airborne division at Fort Bragg, NC, as a team leader in C company 1st battalion 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment.

Fact Four--I'm a music fanatic.

I am very passionate about music, and listen to music during the majority of my waking moments. I am particularly fond of 80's hair metal, punk, and 90's grunge.

Fact Five--I'm a good cook.

I have always enjoyed food, but since I could never find anyone to cook for me I had to learn to do so myself. I don't have a particular type of food that I like, so I dabble with all types of cooking. Lately I have been doing a lot of Mexican food. Not the Tex-Mex crap that is passed off so often as Mexican food, but true Mexican foods. A friend's wife has been supplying me with recipes that she got from her mother and grandmother. Her family is from some village in southern Mexico that I've never heard of.

Okay, that's five about me, so I'll tag Michelle at Mutant Cat since she's really the only person I know on here, and her answers would promise to be interesting.

Religious Affiliation?

Just so readers are clear on this matter, I would like to say that I have no religious affiliation, and consider religious beliefs to be a waste of time, money, energy, paper, and brain cells.

As it turns out, there are many bloggers who share my beliefs on this subject, and many of them have joined together in a blogroll coincidentally titled The Atheists Blogroll. Being the type of person who enjoys being with like-minded people I joined said roll and have placed a link to it over there to the right of the page. Check some of it out---there's some good stuff there.