Cool things you've shared about yourselves...

Updated 3/13/2017

• Currently bringing Huge Idea to fruition via a new Web Application.
• Published a book in 2002, the Corporate Survival Handbook
• I was the first baby born in the hospital where I was born.
• Lived in the foothill of Himalayas (rural, raw mountainous region) in India for few years. In 1987 I worked as a helper for the Himalayan Car Rally (considered one of the most rugged and difficult) in Lansdowne, Garhwal, India. I made some friends during the weeklong engagement and got to sit with one of the participants as a Navigator during their practice runs. I learned a lot about how difficult the rally is and the level of skill needed to take part. Also, I learned that the navigators’ contribution is far more than looking at the maps and is critical to winning or losing the rally.
• Love to dance salsa
• Have 9 tattoos.
• Write rap lyrics on the down low :)
• I've worked IT for an NHL team, and helped setup for the NHL Stanley Cup Final.
• Inventor of multiple ideas under patent process.
• "Would love to develop a phone app for Women looking for dates: Names I have considered: 'Catch and Release', 'Just Dinner' and 'No Strings Attached' Anybody interested?  Basically, women would pay for the date and enjoy the company!!"
• Enjoy making homemade beef jerky.
• My Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering was earned studying man-made Diamonds, and hence my friends call me, "Dr. Diamond." Ask me about my class ring.
• Summited Kilimanjaro
• Four-time Ironman.
• Began programming Video Games when I was 11 years old. I was to leave for California in 1996 to entertain an internship with Pixar when I found out my wife was pregnant with our first son, so we stayed in Tampa.
• Self-taught technical explorer, looking to make things work, to meet the need of the next generation of the digital frontier.
• After I got my bachelor degree in business, I went back to school 5 years later and competed on a women's college team!  I was a non-traditional college age player!
• Windsurfed (a long time ago) in the Dufour National Championship in the Netherlands, Multiple Florida State Championships in E, D, C and B class of Sporting Clays, 5-Stand and FITASC.
• Incredible client list.
• A runner and amateur cook, love football
• As a consultant to a number of energy companies in Texas, I could brag about being a real rocket scientist due to prior work on the Space Shuttle. Given Tampa's proximity to Cape Kennedy, probably not as exciting.
• Former Network certified at Tech Data under Baynetworks
• Tony Dungy once knocked on my door, I thought it was a solicitor, said no thanks, shut the door.  Then realized after a small crowd gathered in the street with cameras.  Who would have thought.  To make matters worse he was handing out church flyers.  Ugh.  Total Fail.
• Ride my Ducati's like I stole them.
• I am a part-time YouTuber with the most popular viral DIY video about making a platform bed from IKEA kitchen cabinets.
• Worked full time through three college degrees: ~20 years of college for BS & MS in CIS and my MBA!
• NAUI Certified Master Diver that loves shipwrecks and doing underwater filming (though my editing needs some work!)
• For five years, I served as the main organizer/moderator for the meetup.com group Indie Rock Boston, which is basically a group for finding friends to go to concerts with. I met some good friends there (including someone who soon became a coworker, by sheer coincidence), but one of the most rewarding things was seeing all the people who were new to town and whose main friends were people they met through the meet up group.
• I really enjoy people watching especially downtown as there is an eclectic mix of people.
• A licensed Captain.
• I am huge Trekkie and actually spotted a mistake in the Star Trek Scene It game.
• Am now the Scala Practice Lead at Accenture and heading up Functional Programming Academy.
• Looking for International Technical Support, Training, Onsite Installs for systems around the world.
• I don't really drink, but I look forward to meeting new people in the tech industry! I'm a recent USF Computer Science graduate looking to work as a software developer.
• Born in a town that no longer exists.
• I am a great singer
• I love jigsaw puzzles.  I have a koi pond in my backyard. I was voted the wittiest senior in my H.S. class. Ilike every food I've ever tasted.
• I have seen Jimmy Buffett in concert 35 times
• I've skydived over the Otay Mesa desert.
• Confusingly left handed
• I was in the water, in a shark cage in Hawaii with about a dozen Galapagos sharks swimming around. "Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies." Captain Quint - Jaws
• I have a wicked funny sense of humor :) dislike dancing in front of anyone other than my pets. You can never expect what is going to come out of my mouth - and sometimes I am just as surprised.
• I am the pianist and DJ for the annual US Marine Ball in Tampa.
• 8th of 11 children -
• My dog has now been certified as a Therapy Dog and we visit shut-ins; Love Gardening; Love Photography; I mentor ""new"" veterans"
• An amateur oenophile.
• Used to race Hobie Cat sailboats.
• Enjoyed a brisk outdoor swim (trunks only, no special gear) above the arctic circle near Rovaniemi Finland.
• Still like Homestar Runner, a lot.
• Summit Kilimanjaro back in 2005
• Giraffe took a piece of food out of my mouth during a trip to Kenya.  Yes I have the pic.
• Have had 6 rotator cuff tears/surgeries, current scheduled for a shoulder replacement, it has to be a record!!!
• I've been to Carnaval in Oruro, Bolivia.  This is the second largest celebration in latin america, behind Rio de Janeiro.  The parade has thousands of dancers, and goes on for nearly 20 hours.  It's an amazing sight.
• First job out of undergrad was SCUBA diving at The Living Seas in EPCOT and from their was recruited to Malcom Forbes' 151 ft motor yacht named, The Highlander as their Events and Media Manager.
• My greatest interest is actually people. While my career is in financial services and technology, my calling is psychology and therapy. (I simply do not want to do it for a living.)
• I have lived all over the world. Went to 22 different schools between 1st and 12th grades!
• Worked with Steve Jobs at NeXT Computer early in my career. More recently, single-handedly rewrote our server in 5 weeks, from the ground up in Scala, Typesafe Play, Akka, and Slick (using AWS and Oracle), when a 3rd party vendor failed to deliver an operational server after 6 months of work.
• I'm a paratrooper
• I study physics, quantum mechanics, and sub atomic particles, and particle entanglement, I'm a Geek to the bone, however I am also a retired competition powerlifter, and deisel mechanic!  I'm a walking talking oxymoron, superposition personality!
• Started discussing digital budgets with retailers back in the day of dial up servers.
• Published author
• I'm a professional golf instructor.
• Most people do not know that I used to be a Tampa Bay Lightning Girl and a Bucs Cheerleader.  I am also a bot of a comic book nerd.
• I'm not Australian.
• I used to race motorcycles in the Enduro circuit Southeastern United States
• Tennis player - once I get settled down here I need to get a regular game. Former racing sailor, J/24 class.  Huge Stevie Ray Vaughan fan, own many concert recordings.  Wrote a computer game in assembler in 1982.
• I'm REALLY into martial arts
• Spent 26 years in the Air Force.  Put in sound system for Air Shows.
• I took a year of college off and went to Sri Lanka where I taught English to the local school kids.
• Acrobatic flying rocks.
• Like to learn new things. Accomplished dancer and poker player.
• I love to travel and have been to 34 countries. I volunteer with over 15 organizations in the Tampa Bay area in collaboration with over 100 USF students at any given time.
• The coolest thing about me is that I know this guy! https://www.linkedin.com/in/fritzhotspaces
• I am a certified Medical Doctor in Mexico and other parts of Europe.
• Play the trumpet
• Auto Mechanic
• Some people call me the space cowboy.
• I still tie my shoes using the bunny ears technique.
• Intensely boring....
• I am a student of Big Data taking Caldera Hadoop, Hive, PIG and other NoSQL classes and working in an AWS lab I built for training myself.
• I was actually born in Upstate NY!
• My dad's third cousin was the founder of Cisco Systems
• I love EDM!
• Into 3D animation, sound engineering and restoring my V12 BMW (very slowly!)
• I'm an avid scuba diver with nearly 1,000 logged dives and hundreds of hours underwater. Among my favorite experiences are swimming up close with whale sharks, real sharks, Goliath grouper, 500# loggerhead turtles, and moray eels. My only close call came when a young moray swam toward me and into my buoyancy control vest as I was hovering, watching it under a small ledge. While my dive companions watched in horror from a respectable distance, I calmly remained still and held my arms out to my side ubtil it finished exploring and swam out through the armholes to find food elsewhere.
• I am an avid home brewer and BJCP certified mead judge.  I also abuse the guitar.  What about things most nobody knows about? ..Uhm, there are good reasons they're secret!!!
• I have lived in Europe for 8 1/2 years on base while my dad was in the military when I was a child.
• I've run a 5k in 3 different continents.
• I really like air plants.
• I'm a technologist, creative, gamer, and poker player.
• Played in the NFL -brief period w/ Patriots practice squad.  Solid experience.
• I'm a podcast junkie, born in Tokyo Japan, and I've been running businesses since I was 9.
• I know how to moonwalk!
• One of the first two women to receive a four year varsity letter for Rutgers Women's Soccer (NCAA, Division 1)
• Do good impersonations.....
• Lived in the Middle East for nearly 10 years and speak, read, and write Arabic.
• I successfully completed my Ph.D. in business administration while also having two kids within a year. I wrote my dissertation while I was on maternity leave with them both. When I tell people that little bit about me, they say that it is an accomplishment that most people cannot do.
• Ridden in the back of a cop car.
• Nothing spectacular.
• One of our cool robust offerings is our MPLS, Data & Voice Solutions!
• I am the developer, designer and marketing director for TheVillagesPost.com a website designed for members of The Villages, the largest retirement community in the world. It has everything built into one website to help local villagers to find clubs, sell items, list businesses, and more. This website has taken me over a year to develop and it is still in a working progress. I should be finished and launching this site in early Q4 of this year. I am looking to expand this concept throughout cities across the US. Currently I need a stable job to get funding for my expenses and business needs. I am looking for any type of job in marketing, web development, Graphic Design, SEO/SEM, or anything in a large reputable company.
• Volunteer firefighter for 20 years - delivered babies, tore folks out of mangled cars, saved houses.
• In the past I was a musical entertainer on cruise ships....but I enjoy Information Technology more....don't tell anyone.
• I’ve been taking jazz/blues lessons from a master. Love those altered chords!
• Flown over the Gulf on a JetLev aqua flyer.
• I love to do triathlons.
• I did my first IRONMAN in 1987.
• Used to jump out of perfectly good airplanes!
• I'm an introvert initially and once I start, the conversation keeps going on and on...
• Olympic Badminton player
• Self-taught on the Mandolin, acoustic guitar, Java and now Hadoop.
• Working virtual for Cisco around multiple disciplines and loving life! I have just introduced the Survivor Power Tool Kit for businesses
• Prepping for a board-presentation for USF to test the mobile-software with their students.
• First time entrepreneur - started The Content Queen in April, "The Right Content is our Crowning Achievement"
• I earned AHIMA's new HIT Pro -PW credential.  It is for the world’s longest job title: Health Information Technology Professional - Practice Workflow & Information Management Redesign Specialist.
• All is well.  God is Great; Beer is good and People are Crazy!!! (quote of a song)
• Spent 25 years as an IT Program Manager /Director with PwC and IBM, now enjoying life as an independent contractor implementing IT projects, coaching other and learning more each day.
• Worked for an Air Force unit that didn't exist, now i don't exist.
• Started laughing when a sniper missed me by about 6 inches while I was in Iraq... is that cool?
• I am a quarter Ho-Chunk, which is a Native American tribe from Wisconsin and I used to dance jingle dress in the powwows.
• Power of positive person. Also looking to talk to various clients and helping them in IT solutions.
• Hmmmm…Worked on this Start up for over two years along with raising three boys and running my own full time art biz! Loving God and LIFE! ;-))
• I cut down four 50+ foot pine trees, myself.
• Jumped out of helicopters
• I really like helmet diving because I can keep my glasses on ... I know that's probably more weird and nerdy than cool.
• I am an avid swing dancer
• Broke my neck!
• I also own a dog bandana company called Maxdanas.
• I can name the make and model of any vehicle by just its' headlights.
• Geek, biker, boater, jock, and connoisseur of fine women and wine...   :-)
• "I hold MCPD certifications in both SharePoint and ASP.NET. I'm a couple of months away from becoming a Certified SharePoint Master.. there are less than 1000 in the world.
• My wife lost 212 lbs and has been featured on The Today Show, The Rachael Ray Show and a national ad campaign for Weight Watchers. I created a blog for her at www.metamorfit.org that goes into much more detail. The blog is still a work in progress but has already been ranked as the #2 blog in the Tampa Bay area and has been frequently featured in local TB area news.
• I've personally lost about 90lbs and have run in a couple of 5K's and completed the Warrior Dash."
• I keep a world map in my office with red pins of where I've been and white pins of where I want to go -- there are a ton more white pins than red pins right now, so my goal is to travel the world until I have all red pins!
• Implementing a Knowledge Management plan at USCENTCOM J2
• Could have been the Command Module pilot for Apollo 21
• Son is an Air Force helicopter mechanic in Okinawa
• Took a couple of business clients on an 'under the radar' tour of a spice plantation in India where we sipped fruit vodka in a tree house and went wading in the river with some water buffalo.
• Performed first solo skydive last Saturday
• Able to find great deals on almost anything.  All my friends call me or take me with them when they need a bargain.
• I met Eric Clapton once
• Die Hard Denver Bronco fan...pretty rare in this area…especially after the Tebow debacle.
• I was a working artist for 18 years creating beveled glass windows.
• I completed a sprint distance triathlon (and lived to tell about it!)
• Former Newspaper Publisher and I love to play tennis.
• SAP Projects in over 25 countries in past 7 years.
• I have always wanted to learn to ride a unicycle off-road.  So, I got one for Christmas and am learning to ride one!
• During a maintenance window in the late '90's Dean Witter's 2 core routers went down. Cisco CCIE's from Belgium, Australia, and the U.S. had been working for a few hours on the problem but could not figure it out.  I was called, and it took me about 15 minutes to find the problem and provide the correct solution. No one bothered to read the Release Notes for the upgrade of the IOS on their core routers.
• Dabble with any platform I can get my hands on...3 #1 iOS apps...2 Top-40 Android Apps"
• Am a published author.  You can find my book on Amazon or almost any online bookstore.  It's called Adventure Mantra, Living My Dreams Awake
• Everywhere I go I find someone I know.
• I'm amazed I do what I do
• I play the viola.
• I support good marketing. When I see great advertising and I feel like they've really nailed it - I go out of my way to buy the product or patron the service. It's like giving a high five to a colleague I've never met.
• I have a pretty creative mind...
• Did some skydiving.
• I was in a Microsoft promotional video for SharePoint a couple of years ago.
• No comment
• I've tried my hand at skydiving...but I think I'll stick with open water dives :-)
• Went Deep sea fishing and found out that I am kinda scared of deep water.
• I attended Tyler School of Art as a double major in Glass Blowing and Ceramics for four years before transferring and graduating with a Computer Science degree.
• Currently, one project that I am working on has somehow put me in a place where I have global marketing rights to a never been seen before Archive of provocative Beatles and Rolling Stones Photographs (3500) taken by their tour manager from 1946-1966.
• Hmmm....I'll have to think about that one!
• Love to scuba dive!
• Opened a call center in Oregon State Penitentiary.   Saved company over 50% in data collection for B2B Data Marketing Company.
• I have been a home-brewer, off and on since 1992, and I brew a mean Red Ale!!  Most folks don't know that I graduated from the Police Academy in 1997.
• I can convert regular books into e-books.
• When you get to know me, you find out things like this :)......
• One cool thing? I was at a restaurant once and everyone thought I was Nicole Kidman. Sometimes I look like her.
• Worked in the NHL, NFL, and NASCAR as an I.T. guy.
• I have unlimited brain power!
• I used to be a spy.
• Identified a new global customer segment for IBM's digital media solutions at a time when the solutions were still in R&D.  Once the segment was identified, I led the initiative to commercialize the solutions with two early wins in Spain and Australia and develop/execute the $1 billion growth plan.
• In the past year I have become a father and attained my VCP certification.
• Started this unit in 1997 with 1 other person and no revenue and it now has 48 people and 0ver $53 million in revenue. It's very cool to start from nothing and stand where we stand today and still have some of our original team members.
• I met Kid Rock (and Pamela Anderson) in Dallas 2004 with backstage pass in his concert.
• Used to have long hair.
• Lost in Machu Picchu when i was a young boy and ended up going off with one of the villager boys to his mud hut. I saw chickens and pigs and I think that is where my love for nature and my hopes to someday be a farmer out in the great wide open came from.
• Studied film & theatre in college
• Used to be Cinderella at Disney World.
• Worked on a Hand Held mobile computing platform, with a custom GPS data capture system designed for the Refined Fuels and Propane Industry. It was cutting edge technology then and was ahead of its time - late 90's early 2000's.
• Opened a call center in Oregon State Penitentiary.   Over $2million in annual savings for the company
• I have been to Australia
• Secretly sang karaoke contests all over town during college to pay for books and sorority dues... Lol... Umm…They don't pay or do bar tabs for that anymore ... So yeah...
• I'm slightly older then I am young...
• "I criss-crossed the US by train last year and I can fold a neat little elephant from a dollar.
• Sold imac.com to Apple.
• Played D1 Women's lacrosse at St. Bonaventure
• Learned to Surf in Hawaii.
• Once played tennis at Wimbledon Country Club the same week as the tournament and rubbed elbows with many tennis professionals of the day!
• Soccer coach for West Florida Flames Soccer Club in Palm Harbor
• Enjoy painting, knitting and creating new cooking recipes in my free time.
• Aikido and I'm a military brat.
• When I was six I would peel my grapes and only eat the insides.
• I have my motorcycle license so in the next couple of years I plan on getting me a sport bike!
• Camped out in the Sahara Desert in Egypt last month, while in Egypt for my daughter's wedding.
• Ride a unicycle???
• Took time out in late 2010, travelled to Tanzania and climbed Mt Kilimanjaro.
• Lived in Germany
• There was this one time in Tijuana...
• Back in the early 90's I developed custom postscript drivers for publishing in the real-estate marketing/analysis industry.
• I should have been a professional musician. Oh well.
• Over 50 yrs old still playing solid FULL-Court basketball.
• Went to Marine Corp officer school
• Project Management in Anti Money Laundering technology
• Doing a lot of SAP security work in South Africa
• Co-developed the SS7 soft switch for VoIP
• I know Pi to 70 decimal places. ;)
• Avid formula-one fan
• Love to volunteer (food banks, habitat, fundraising for Christian radio station), used to play volleyball a lot, translate telenovelas for people worldwide on internet.
• Performed a solo cross country trip in a single engine plane from Peter O' Knight - Ocala - Lakeland - and back to TPA. 90 NM trip minimum. Was working on my private pilots license.  Also skydived in Ocala on my 25th birthday.
• I restored 4 electric Vintage keyboards.
• Founder of ITC Global and creator of much of the early madness and growth.
• ...I used to drive a riverboat as a job while I was in High School.
• Love to bake.
• Speak five languages fluently and I am willing to relocate at any time should it be needed. Born and raised in Brazil, speak fluent Portuguese, German and English
• Coached a rookie FIRST robotics team in Hawaii that won regionals and went to the World Championship tournament!
• I love bubbles ;)  lol