Johnnie tagged me

Johnnie Moore tagged me to reveal eight things about myself you probably didn’t know and then tag eight others…alright then.

• Since 1987 I have worked with the I Ching as a way to understand the pattern language of change, using it to sharpen my seeing about all kinds of situations.   I don’t use it as a fortune telling device, rather as a user’s manual to change. It is one of my oldest practices, although   by no means a daily one.
• Since January 1986 I have kept written journals which have recorded 22 years of living.   They are less diaries and more just notebooks of many shapes and sizes.   I have only lost one, spanning a period of nine months or so during which a close friend was murdered.   It was in a bag I had stolen at a gig.
• All eight of my great-grandparents were born in Canada, and most of my 16 great-great-grandparents were born here too.   For a country of immigrants, and considering that most of my ancestry is European, that is a remarkable stat.   In 2001 only 4% of all Canadians had all four of their grandparents born here.   My wife is South African by birth, so my kids and grandkids will be firmly in the other 96%.
• I have only owned two cars my entire life, but too many bicycles to count.   Because I grew up in Toronto, I didn’t get my driver’s license until I was 24.
• I wear a signet ring that has a phoenix on it.   It was given to me by my paternal grandfather in 1989 when I turned 21.   He mused that it was a crest that had been in our family since the 1300s, and was a common symbol that Christian crusaders adopted from their time wrecking havoc in the middle east.
• My first job for which I was paid was working in a cemetery.   During high school I earned money lifeguarding, working at a self-serve gas station and selling tropical fish at AAA Aquarum on Yonge Street in the days before the big box pets stores did in the little guys.   The owner of that shop died from AIDS-related pnuemonia in 1986.   He was the first person I knew who had HIV.
• I was a teenage stamp collector.
• Although I have met many bloggers in my life after reading their blogs, Johnnie was the first one to offer me a safe harbour and a spare bed to crash on for a couple of days when I was travelling through London last summer. It was a generous gesture born out of a uniquely 21st century trust relationship.   Out of gratitude for   imposing on an otherwise perfectly good weekend of getting lost in WoW, I have responded to this tag…Thanks again, mate!

So that’s it.   I’m leaving Regina tomorrow for Calgary and Seattle to do a little work with the Quinault Nation and catch up with Harrison Owen, who is breezing through town.   To pass on the meme I’m tagging the last eight bloggers I’ve met face to face with: Tenneson, Ashley, Christie, Jeff, Andy, James, Nancy, and Andre.