Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Blog Tag

I've been tagged in a game of blog tag by Helen Middenhall of Love is the Most Excellent Way (although I know her from conversation at the edge, which is closed for a week for the holidays). The way the game works is if you get tagged, you have to post five things about yourself that people probably don't know. Here's my five.

1. I used to spend time playing the guitar and singing, and even wrote some songs quite a while ago.

2. I was the acting associate manager of a domino's pizza store for a little over a year back in the 90's, and we were held up at gun point and all bound with duct tape. Fortunately, no one got hurt. They never found the bad guys or the money.

3. I have a 4.0 grade point average over my most recent 60 credits (I can hardly believe it). I'm expanding my undergrad degree from bachelor of arts in psychology to bachelor of arts in psychology and international studies.

4. My favorite type of schoolwork is mathematics--I find it beautiful and orderly and it just works really well for me.

5. I've travelled to 25 countries in my (still relatively short) lifetime.

(I'm tagging Jim at Doable Evangelism, Jonathan at The Nautical File, Paul at People Against Fundamentalism, Banzai at The Banzai Chronicles, R at Dragons Fly and Monkey Tea, Megan at Bag End and Justin at Ramblin' Again)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Benjamin - good visiting with the "fam" yesterday, good to see you again at Christmas. Lots of things happening now for us all right???

I dig your "5 things most people don't know about me" commentary. I knew you played guitar & had written some songs because you sang one for me last time you came down south, which was a while ago.

I'm glad to be back in touch. Don't know what God means to you anymore but getting the signals things have cooled off in that area? Any chance I could be of some encouragement? You just let me know man, my faith is very strong :)

You've got a wonderful family Benjamin and you should be proud of them. Your wife has a very gentle spirit, and I know Leila felt connected to her. You did well in life Benjamin!

I'll check in on your blog from time to time. Hoping to get my site a little more savy and get some of the other stuff on it I want to sell.

Life has been crazy all around me but I'm standing firm. Feels like I'm in a hurricaine sometime (that's how the song came about).

Drop me a ________

- Steven

PS: I've got a blog on this server too called "noneedtoconform", but I'll be darned if I can remember the password hahahahahahah ((it's that over 40 thing)...

Helen said...

Hi Benjamin, thanks for playing the game!

I enjoyed reading about your five things. Was it scary when you were held up at gunpoint and bound with duct tape? How long was it until someone found you and untied you?

Benjamin Ady said...

hey--look, helen has a photo on blogspot. very kewl.

It wasn't actually scary for me at all. The emotion that I felt was rage. The corporate policy, which had been very much drilled into us (and which possibly saved my life) was to be completely obsequious with anyone who had a gun--give them the money and do what they say. (by the way, this is a policy that I think makes a lot of sense in general). So even though I almost saw red and wanted to just attack and kill (yes, murderous rage) the guy with the gun (it was like this sense of "how *dare* you violate me like this?!?!!"), I simply gave him my moneybag, and let him duct tape me. He got me first, in the back of the store, and then he went up front and got the manager, the manager's wife, and one other employee. He took all the money in the till, and left everyone bound with duct tape. The manager waited quite a while and then got up and called 911, well after the thieves (it turned out there was another one outside) left. I was bound something like 30 minutes. They only got away with something like $700--strikes me as so not worth armed robbery. Like if I were gonna do armed robbery, I'd want to go after at least several hundred thousand. After that, I had to quit taking taekwondo, which I had been doing for a little while, because I found that my workouts turned into these resentment rage things where I would be visualing the thief.

Steve--not much chance of you "encouraging me in my faith". Thanks for the thought though.

Helen said...

Benjamin, yeah, I added that photo recently :)

I can understand how it would feel violating to be robbed and also why it would make you angry.

Being robbed is not an experience I've had and I won't mind if I never have it!

baker st jones said...

Hi Bens, touching base on your blog in the post Christmas slow period (is for me anyway). I'm glad for the electronic chain letter info - The whole duct tape thing is mind blowing (metaphorically thank God). T.

Justin said...

I shall get there soon...