7 Random Things

OK, OK.. I'll succomb to the to pressure. OK, no real pressure, but being a non-conformist, I held out as long as I could. Although, my biggest reason for not doing this is that I have led about the most boringst life that you can lead so not much to read here; but I was tagged by a couple of bloggers so I will go ahead and post a few random things about Willwonka.

1) I am a huge Dallas Cowboys football fan. I was actually born in Dallas but only lived there for 5 years where we then moved to Kansas City. We stayed there for only 3 years when we moved to St Louis. I have lived here ever since; but as they say, you can take the boy out of Texas, but you can never take the Texas out of the boy. I have a room dedicated solely to the Dallas Cowboys... ok, check that.. I had 2 daughters now which took away my Dallas Cowboys room; but the Dallas Cowboys ceiling fan remains in there. Like I said, I have two daughters. If I had a son, his name would have been Troy Daniel (for Troy Aikman and Danny White) and I would have called him Roger (for Roger Staubach); but that didn't work out and we had two girls. Their names are Landry and Lily which of course are named after famous Cowboys. I'm sure that you can figure it out. I'm excited for the future and have already bought a Tony Romo Jersey as I believe he is the man.

2) I have been married for almost 7 years which is truly a miracle that somebody could put up with me for that long. I was a little older when I got married (over 30); but Mrs Wonka was certainly worth the wait. We actually worked together for a little while before we started seeing each other. The office quasi frowned on inter-office type things so we didn't tell anybody. This went on for 11 months and 11 days before I popped the question which was done in a unique way. I am a huge Rocky Balboa fan (my wife wasn't) so we went on a vacation to DC/Philly/Atlantic City. While in Philly, I made arrangements to visit the Philadelphia Zoo to recreate the proposal that Rocky gave to Adrian in front of the tiger cage. The zoo was more than cooperative and they actually alerted the media and 4 TV stations and 2 newspapers were there to record the event. My wife had not seen Rocky II so she thought we were just seeing spots from the movie. Luckily, she said yes and that is how our office found out about us as we were on the St Louis News that night. A few people said that they basically fell out of bed because they couldn't believe it.

3) As I mentioned before, I am a huge football fan and played it from age 8 through High School. I had a few offers to walk on to small colleges but decided against it. To this day, that is one of my biggest regrets. Although at 6'2 210 pounds, I would have been killed, I would of had the time of my life. The regret was kind of doubled as I asked my dad years later if he was disappointed that I didn't at least try and he said yes. Part of the deal leads to my to my most embarrassing moment. OK, not really a moment; but embarassing fact maybe. I have never been able to bench press my weight. I'm just not sure how that is possible for as much as lifting as I did in High School; but it is what it is. To this day, I have never climbed a rope or pole. Just weird.

4) Religion or should I say Christiananity is very important to me. I was born and raised Souther Baptist and married a Catholic. We have both compromised and now go to an Evangelical Free church which is OK by me. To me, religion is not the important part. It is your faith and belief in the Bible that should set the standard for your life. I don't drink, nor smoke, no cuss (what do I do); but I obviously do gamble. So there is a fine line between my faith and the many vices that are out there today. To me, as long as you stay within the means (money) of your bankroll, gambling shouldn't interfere and it hasn't for me. The problem that I have is the time factor. I will agree that I spend too much time gambling (mostly poker) that could be used for more important things. My wife goes as far as to say that I'm addicted. Don't know about that; but it is worth noting.

5) Like I just said, I don't drink. I didn't drink at all in High School; but things were different in college For whatever reason, maybe being away from home or whatever; but I was definitely different there that I was at home. I only lasted one year in college before the money ran out. My parents made too much for loans but not enough to pay for college. I quit and went home and worked for 1 1/2 or so years. From there, I paid for my college which is one of my more prouder moments. You would think that since I was paying for it, I would have taken it more seriously; but noooo. I got caught in the college life. Nothing major; just partying too much and not paying enough attention to school. At the end of the day, my grade point average was at 2.499. I needed a 2.5 to be able to get my degree (in accounting). I tried everything that I could to get teachers to raise my grade. I even went to my golf class instructor which I took my last semester and tried to get him to give me extra credit which was warranted because I played plenty of golf; but never turned in scorecard for extra credit. Going from a B to an A in golf would have done the trick; but the instructor had already left for the semester and nobody would change it. I ended up taking some Income Tax class for two weeks in what they called a winter intercession class and that did the trick and I graduated.

6) I used to be a pretty big reader; but I was as slow as molasses. My favorite being Stephen King books. No doubt, my favorite book being "The Stand". Sort of related is that my favorite movie (besides Rocky and other Sylvestor Stallone movies such as First Blood) is Shawshank Redemption which of course is a Stephen King short story. So being a slow reader, I don't read much these days (besides blogs... lol). I have never read a poker pook in its entirety except for biography type books (Chris Moneymaker and Matt Matros); but hope to change that real soon. More on this subject in a few days.

7) and lastly, I think my best quality is my ability not to worry about things. As the Bible says in Matthew 6:34, "do not worry about tomorrow today as today will have enough trouble of its own" is kind of my life slogan. My wife is/was the exact opposite as they worried about everything. She has made great strides here and is able to cope with things much better.

So there you have it and there you are.

I'm sure that there is nobody left to tag so if you haven't been tagged and you are reading this, consider yourself tagged.

Have a good day!!!