Eek! I’ve been tagged! Dave really should know better than to send me stuff like this since I generally just ignore it. I’m gonna go ahead and respond to this one though, for two reasons.

• Unlike the usual email versions, this one’s a bit more open-ended on the responses and doesn’t seem quite as fluff-laden. (It’s still fluff-laden mind you, just not quite as bad.)
• The complete email I received about this said nothing more than, “You’ve been tagged to fill out a so-called meme with false, misleading or otherwise useless information.” That opens up some possibilities.
• Best of all, unlike some of those so-called “inspirational” emails, this one didn’t contain any coercive threats. (Yes, I know that’s three out of two reasons. So?)

Just because I can, I’m gonna go and tag Z. and Amy. John should consider himself tagged too, but I don’t expect him to do much with this until after he finishes this year’s writing overdose.

1. What were you doing 10 years ago?

My first inclination was to point out that because I live in the DC area, there’s a non-zero possibility that the most truthful answer would be, “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.” But I suspect that most of the people for whom that’s actually true have cover identities which are much more interesting than my real life.
Besides, after giving it some thought and looking ahead to the next question, the parallels between 10 years ago and one year ago are rather surprising.
Ten years ago, I’d been in the DC area for about three years. I’d known SueP and a few other on-liners for a while, but given the nature of the area, I was still working on getting to know the locals. This was about the time when I first got to know Little Guy, Tom, Karen, Lisa and several of the other zany people who are still a part of my life. At that point, I was still feeling the unexpected pain from tearing up roots when I left Nevada. (When I moved East, I’d had no idea that I put down so many roots.)
I hadn’t yet joined the Jaycees (wasn’t even aware of the group), had no interest in buying a house, and although Terry and I had been palling around the countryside for five years, Wylie was still Steve’s dog and my life was decidedly free of dog hair.
Professionally, the dot-com boom was just starting to explode at that point and we were only beginning to realize that web sites could be used for more than just displaying static text. I was splitting my time between programming for Windows and system administration for a would-be web hosting company. (If the owner had placed just one ad somewhere instead of relying on people finding him in the search engines, he might have actually made some money.)
In October of 1997, I was also looking for a new job; which I found in December of that year.

2. What were you doing one year ago?

By October of 2006, I’d put down quite a few more roots in the DC area and elsewhere. Along with the zany folks mentioned above, I’d also come to know AJ & Mike, Squish, Z, Laura, Sue, Steve, Jeff and what feels like a cast of thousands more. Definitely a few more roots got planted over those nine years.
Speaking of planting things, in that intervening nine years, I’d also bought a house and planted a vegetable garden and more flowerbeds than I would have ever imagined.
In October, I’d been in the Jaycees for most of seven years and was contemplating the fact that because I’d turned 40 earlier in the year, my time in the Jaycees was nearly over. (A month later, I found myself running for District Director. My campaign was so impressive that nobody else dared to run against me. All of this is Sue’s fault.)
And, also in October of last year, I was again looking for a new job. Defying industry averages, I’d actually stayed put in the same job for nine years. By this time I’d already interviewed with Amazon, turned down a contracting job (hour-and-a-half commute, but little gain in salary), and was debating whether to accept another one (I eventually decided against that one, as it would have been a step backwards in technology).

3. What are five snacks you enjoy?

a) Chocolate chip cookies
b) Crunchy granola bars
c) Gala apples
d) Carrots
e) Ice Cream (Bruster’s, of course)

4. What are five songs you know the lyrics to?

I think we need to be clear on this. These are songs I know the lyrics to. These are not songs I can sing. Unless you want to count things such as the background vocals to the Peter Gunn theme, the list of songs I can sing has five fewer entries. (Now if you want to count caterwauling…)
a) The Impossible Dream (and several other numbers from Man of La Mancha)
b) Science Fiction Double Feature (and a lot of other nonsense from Rocky Horror Picture Show)
c) The Grundy County Auction Incident (aka “SOLD!”)
d) Friends in Low Places (Is there anyone out there who doesn’t know that one?)
e) The Saga Begins

5. Five Things You Would Do If You Were A Millionaire

This is a silly question. If I had a million dollars, it’s probably because I spent a bunch of years being very careful about my spending and my investments. So if I was sufficiently disciplined to save that much, hopefully I’d be able to resist the temptation to spend it all on one big party. (Though if Jennifer Aniston RSVP’ed to say she was planning to attend, the choice would become more difficult.)
Now there is another way to get a million dollars. If someone flat-out gave me a million dollars, the odds are that I’d probably spend it badly, forgetting to put aside enough to pay the taxes and not putting enough into savings. But let’s face it, nobody except the US Federal Government runs around giving out bundles of 1 million-dollar bills, and so far my local representatives don’t seem to consider my research to be worthy of any pork-barrel money. (Surely research on how to stay home and collect a million dollars is worthy of funding!)
On the other hand… A few years ago, I was out for a walk and found a $50 bill. A week later, I used it to pay for dinner (resulting in about $40 worth of change – I’m a cheap date). So if finding $50 can happen, I suppose finding $100 is only slightly less plausible.
Rephrasing the question then:
Five Things You Would Do If You Were A Millionaire Hundredaire:
a) Go out for dinner.
b) Tip generously
c) Fill up the gas tank (At current prices, my hybrid uses about $65-70 worth of gas each month.)
d) Buy some treats for Terry and Wylie
e) Give swing-dancing another try (it was fun when I tried it last weekend).

6. Five Things Your Kids Have Taught You

(I’m clearly not the target audience for this question.)
a) Caterwaul! Terry has no compunctions about singing “The Abandoned Parrot Song” any time I dare to step outside without her. Likewise, Wylie has a standard “Welcome Home” monologue he delivers most evenings. So if I feel like singing, I do. (Terry and Wylie have recently started a petition to make me stop.)
b) Nap. Wylie is the undisputed king of sleeping late on the weekend.
c) Silliness rules! Wylie’s stories are the stuff of legend, but Terry’s no slouch either. (They’ve both tried to walk/fly through window screens.)
d) Dinner can wait. Terry and Wylie are both quite content to walk away from the food dish when there’s something else they’d like to do. The past few years, it hasn’t been all that unusual for me to put off dinner until 9 or 10.

7. Five Things You Like To Do

a) Spend time with friends. (That’s just so trite! Just how much of a misfit would you have to be to not have this on your list?)
b) Stay up late. Time sleeping is time I don’t get to spend doing something else.
c) Write (obviously) Dividing by Zero is up to 273 posts in 18 months and there’s more stuff that isn’t online. I just wish I had a few more readers!
d) Gardening. This year’s vegetable garden was a bit of a disaster, but the flowerbeds did OK.
e) Walk Never mind the exercise, Wylie and I do some of our best brainstorming when we’re out for a walk.
Bonus item: I also like to poke fun at ads on the radio. For example, the Banner Power “So reliable it recharges itself” ads. How can I trust a company that doesn’t understand cause and effect well enough to make their meaning clear?

8. Five Things You Would Never Wear

With my group of friends, and their propensity for finding wacky ways to raise money for charity, I’m not completely comfortable using the word “never” here. But for some clothing items, the amount of money being raised would have to be pretty darn substantial. (In this particular context, “substantial” can be interpreted to mean that there are at least three zeros on the left side of decimal point, and all of them are to the right of the non-zero digits.)
a) Women’s clothing. (Matt has pretty well cornered the market on this one. I really need to find a picture to link from here.)
b) Any combination of two or more clothing items with stripes, prints or plaids.
c) Polka-dots in combination with pretty much anything.
d) Pink. (Never mind that time I washed a red shirt with all my white clothes.)
e) Uniform of the Zontaaran Advance Reconnaissance Corps.

9. Five Favorite Toys

a) Bottle of Diet Coke and a roll of Mentos
b) The Internet
c) People’s minds (A “toy” is something you play with, right? Not that I like playing pranks or anything.)
d) Legos – You can build pretty much any other toys from these.
e) Any sort of writing/drawing implement and a suitable medium to use it on.

10. Five Things You Hate To Do

a) Deal with those “forward this to everyone you know” emails. I’m much more interested in hearing from my friends about what they’ve been doing instead of what other people have forwarded them.
b) Sleep (See 7-b)
c) Listen to politicians give speeches (98% of them give the rest a bad reputation, so I wind up assuming that they’re all lying.)
d) Wash the dishes. This is why I have a dishwasher. There are alternatives though.
e) Wake up in the morning. (One of the downsides of that whole not sleeping thing.)