This was originally posted in my facebook notes on 1 March 2009.


Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. Reciprocate and tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.  (I went a bit over - I was just typing random facts, and they got a little away from me.)

1.  Jesus Christ is my Savior.  He is fully God and fully man.  He suffered and died to bear our sins.  His sacrifice bore the penalty of sin, so that those who are saved would not have to; it is God's gift of grace for those who are redeemed.  He is my Lord and Savior, and I am His very imperfect follower, a sinner saved by His grace.  God the Father has forgiven my sins by virtue of the blood sacrifice of His Son, and He stands ready with arms open wide in love to wash away the sins of all those who acknowledge and accept Him as Lord.

2.  I am too sentimental for my own good.

3.  I've been kyaking on an Arctic river and hiking on the polar ice cap (during the summer thaw, which, in retrospect, was probably not the safest thing to do - but then, it wouldn't have been an adventure if it had been safe).

4.  I think life should be more like a musical - I would love it if we were always bursting into song and dancing around because of a successful meeting or a parking ticket.

5.  St. Louis is one of my two favorite cities, and it's where I want to live.  (London is the other one - that was a freebie.)

6.  I cry during sad and/or noble and heroic movies and sometimes even sappy romantic comedies.  I also often cry during war movies, since they typically reflect past or present reality, which can be quite tragic.

7.  I love Taylor University - I consider my years at Taylor my time spent in Eden.

8.  A stranger's hamster peed on me on a cross-country Grehound bus; and a paranoid man befriended me, warned me "They" were closing in, and left his possessions in my care when he decided to escape and evade in Kansas.  Unfortunately, his possessions included his medication...  (I found an address for his mother and mailed his stuff home.)

9.  In law school, a random woman at Denny's grabbed my straw out my mouth and kept it when I was slurping too much.

10.  I've knocked myself out with nunchucks (in college).  I've lost throwing stars in the woods (I was ten - gimme a break).  Sparring is tons o' fun, but I no longer fight with real knives.

11.  Despite the great fun I have in sparring, I don't like tournaments - I get incredibly nervous when fighting in them.  Actually, I get nervous anytime I do something "performance" based (teaching, speaking, litigating, sparring in front of people, acting - you name it), but I usually calm down and get into it once I get going.

12.  I've driven 140mph in a friend's Camaro on the loop around Memphis.  I tend to drive the speed limit these days (more or less).

13.  I like geek things.  I suppose that makes me a geek, or at least a wannabe geek (things like Magic:  The Gathering, computers, video games, comic books, Rennaisance festivals, etc.).

14.  I saw a girl sporting a "Kiss me, I gave blood" sticker, so I did.  On the lips.  (Relax - this was in college.)

15.  I've had swing dancing lessons.  I would later go on to dislocate my shoulder while flipping a girl during a swing dance.

16.  46 states and 40 countries;  many more to go.

17.  I met my wife in the Air Force on the very first day of officer training.  The training lasted one month, and we were not interested in each other at that time.  Five months later, we met again at military justice school, and the first week we both felt that spark.  We were both seeing other people at the time but soon put stop to that silliness and got on with the business of courting.  A month after we started dating, I loved her, and a month after that I decided to marry her.  Of course, it wasn't until three and a half years later that we actually married.

18.  In junior high and high school, I wanted to president of the United States.  In college, the more I found out about the job, the less I wanted it, and so I settled on US senator.  (Politics was part of my motivation for going to law school, since I believed those who write the law should understand the law.)  These days, I my ambition is to lead a quiet life of faithfulness to the Lord.  That said, I love adventures - in fact, I long for them.  It's why I love to travel, read fiction, watch movies, and play computer games, and do so many of the crazy things I do - I inevitably imagine myself in the book/movie/game, having an exciting adventure (but without all the danger or tedium of actually living it myself - now that I have a family, I've had to leave most dangerous (and even semi-dangerous) adventures behind).
(Boy, you got a lot of Matt in this one.  Feel free to take a personal intermission for a few minutes.  I'll wait.)

19.  I would love to get all my friends to live on the same street in St. Louis, or at least to all live in St. Louis.  I tried this in college with very limited success.

20.  I've ridden an airport baggage claim carousel.  I was 28.

21.  I love castles - they appeal to the romantic in me.  

22.  I can be quite pompous.  I don't mean to be that way, and the Holy Spirit is working on me.

23.  I couldn't handle being wealthy.  I would live mainly for myself (more than I already do) if I were rich.  I would travel and sleep and indulge all my hobbies and live a life of leisure instead of a life focused on the Lord.

24.  Life is beautiful and magical, and I never want to lose that sense of wonder.  Certainly there is considerable sorrow and horror in this world, evil both brutal and banal, but there is greater love and joy.

25.  I stop and smell the roses.  I am "sensory oriented," for lack of a better term, by which I mean I like to touch and smell and taste things.  This can drive my friends crazy when they have to wait for me smell the flowers and roll the leaves between my fingers.

26.  In college, I was voted "Most likely to be found up in a tree."  I like to climb things - anything.  I've almost died twice while rock climbing.  I can't imagine how much this has scarred my parents and my wife, and I'm sure I'll be in for some payback with my son.

27.  I don't like meanness, and even in jest it can bother me.  I don't also don't like confrontation in personal settings but prefer an earnest discussion.  (Confrontation in a professional setting (at trial or, I suppose, when sparring) is another matter - that can be invigorating.)

28.   I love to eat, especially dessert.  At 35 this is more of a problem than it used to be.

That's more than enough Matt for anyone; thanks for reading.  Move along; nothing more to see here.