8 random things

I was tagged to give eight random facts about myself by Anandadevika the other day, oh alright let's be real here, it was amost a week ago. I had actually written what I wanted to share, but haven't even had the time to get online and post it. The posts I have been getting up have been through email. Thanks for sticking with me, AnandaDevika, I see you in my statcounter everyday and I appreciate your readership. I do have to say though I don't know that I've ever been referred to as an Eco-Blogger. Am I really? I certainly do have a lean towards that I guess. Either way I certainly won't argue with it.

Here's the rules,
1) Post these rules before you give your facts
2) List 8 random facts about yourself
3) At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names, linking to them
4) Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they've been tagged.

And here's the randomness:
1. I was born in Sweden; northern Sweden actually, in a town named Umeå. My mom is full Swedish and no, I was not an ARMY brat, my parents actually met in California. If anything I guess I’m a travel brat. My name is not actually P~, shocking I know, it’s Paul. The lack of a “c” in the spelling is the Swedish spelling of it and has haunted me for 36 yrs! If I could only count how many times have people corrected my spelling of my own name.

2. I was born on same day as my grandfather. He was my hero as a kid, and I was the only one of his Grandkids that ever really got to know him. Whenever I hear Randy Travis sing “He walked on water” I swear he wrote it about Grandpa.

3. I have four boys from 10 – 14 yrs old. Three live with me full time and one lives in Seattle with his mother (my ex). I love them all, and am continually challenged by them. It seems that no matter how badly they have broken something I am expected to be able to fix it. (I guess I set the bar a little high when I made replacement parts for a Play Station controller from a plastic coat hanger and a propane torch last year. It still works by the way, saved me $40.00 too!)

4. My wife is my soul mate. I know this is a little cliché, I mean what am I going say, that she’s not? I really mean it though; from the moment we met I think we both knew it. We have so much in common, and what we don’t seems to balance the other out in some way. A hand and glove never fit better than we do.

5. Want to build a straw bale home. I mean I really want to build a straw bale home. I could probably be persuaded to move toward a partial straw bale and partial steel or timber frame, maybe even ICFs, but either way I want to build my own home. Not just contract it mind you, but really build it with my hands.

6. I am a conservative and green too. Yeah I know for some that seems an oxymoron, though why that is I don’t know. I’ve talked about it more HERE, so I won’t go into it too much.

7. I went to college in London after my first year in school in the states. Somehow I had good enough grades to warrant an invitation to study at the University of London on an exchange program, and with the benevolence of my parents was able to take that opportunity. I loved it and loved London. If I were to ever call a big city home, it would probably be that one. (Though I just don’t ever see me in a big city. Straw bale homes and cities…hhmmm….not so much.)

8. I served 5 yrs in the US ARMY. I needed it, and it worked. I can unabashedly say that I would not be the man that I am today if it had not been for the time that I spent in service. I learned discipline, and sacrifice. I learned that you can suffer being uncomfortable and it won’t kill you, and I learned why it is that our country is free. Thank a soldier if you see one.

Now being the rebelious spirit that I am, and being that it's 12:34 right now and I have to get up early to volunteer at the Green Homes Tour (yeah I guess I am a little bit of an eco-blogger huh?) I just don't have the time to link to a bunch of other sites, I know I'm terrible, and lazy but this one's just gonna have to die here. Have a good weekend all, I'll post more soon with some pictures of the homes from the tour.
P~

Well that about does it I guess. Now you know all about me right? As for tagging others, I only really have a few people that I can think to tag so I’ll have to limit it to 4.