Trivia: Tell us all a fascinating fact about yourself

We all love how the Bad Voltage community is forming. To get to know each other more and more, I want to ask everyone to share a fascinating fact about themselves. This could be a weird/funny/interesting experience, skill, talent, or anything else.

Feel free to share more than one too!

I will kick things off. I was kicked out of a nightclub by security when I was about 6 years old. My dad owned and ran the club (one of many jobs he had) and he had the idea of magic shows for kids during the days. Magician was thereā€¦I was hecklingā€¦and security asked what my dad should do. He said ā€œban him and call the pressā€. Publicity ensued.

Whoā€™s next?

I wish I had something like Jonoā€™s to share, a few facts I do have:

  1. I have a book published ā€œMySQL 5.1 Plugin Developmentā€. It taught me that I never want to go though that again unless there is a massive incentive to do so. Also the first taste of finding someone pirating my work.

  2. My avatar was designed by animator Jett Atwood (Markā€™s sister).

  3. I originally met the wonderful lady who has been my wife for 9 years on IRC (and she isnā€™t a geek).

  4. In 2011 I had to give 8 hours of talks and tutorials at a big conference in Santa Clara just after my team and I all lost their jobs. The result is over 50% of my hair fell out (it has since grown back). There is a photo I have of me almost bald wearing a t-shirt saying ā€œKeep your hair on, Daffy Duckā€ which my wife bought me at the time.

I was taught to drive a horse and carriage then went on to teach a horse how to pull a carriage and be driven. It took six months and much patience, a good sense of humour - and a willing horse. On a good Summers day, we get a load of the family, especially Grand Children, onto the carriage and go out for a picnic drive.
I use Xubuntu every day for my work as an IT Infrastructure Engineer. I am a bit of an evangelist. Sadly, not a brilliant one.

I worked as a ride operator at Disneyland on Star Tours and Space Mountain in the early 2000ā€™s

When Jono(I think) was talking about the distribution of listeners, he mentioned that one guy in Zimbabwe or something. Iā€™m not from Zimbabwe but I probably fall into the ā€œthat one guyā€ category.

I was worked at a bungee tower in South Padre Island, TX USA Earth Milky Way. We made the 150 ft (45.72 m) jump on a regular basis. It was a lot of fun.

Many may find this hard to believe, but I really am not a super-hero. No, really!

My wife and I ended up in the water in the Okavango Swamps (Botswana) after a hippo charged and capsized out dugout canoe (makoro). Could have ended much worse. Hippos kill more people in Africa each year than any other mamal.

When I was much younger I did a parachuting course - 3 x static jumps. After the second jump and on the ground there was a whole lot of commotion coming from the air as another student was screaming on her way down. The three of us took off running towards the lady jumping fences to catch up with her. She landed safely but had freaked out and pulled her emergency chute. Calmed her down and then headed back in. On the way back we came across the fences again - they were the electrified ones which we hadnā€™t noticed. We used the gates this time. Afterwards we went back and completed the third jump - that was all the parachuting I ended up doing.

I still canā€™t donate blood in my home country because I lived in the UK with my parents when I was a baby during the early 80ā€™s. Mad cow disease fears.

Many years ago (20+), the Seattle ā€œfun forestā€ (aka ā€œa video game arcade located at the Seattle Centerā€) moved from its location in the basement of the old Armory building to a new location nearby. The folks running the fun forest took that opportunity to get rid of the video games that werenā€™t making enough money any more.

Those machines were all put out at the curb to be hauled to the dump. Dozens and dozens of arcades from the 1970ā€™s and early 1980ā€™s.

A gentlemen drove by, saw this sad sight, and offered to take all the games away ā€“ which the people running the fun forest readily agreed to, happy to not need to pay the fees to dispose of them all.

So he rented a van and took several trips to drag them up to his home ā€“ where he promptly stored them away in his basement and garage. Eventually he decided he needed to get rid of themā€¦ so he put an add out to sell a few of the more common items. One of those was a Choplifter arcade that needed some work.

I saw this ad and gave him a call. Turns out he had a lot of interesting itemsā€¦ but one caught my attention: He had a Computer Space.

Now, this was fairly exciting for the Lunduke clan. Computer Space being the very first arcade video game machine ever produced (by Nolan who went on to found Atari). Both my wife and I considered having a Computer Space to be something important to do one day. It was a bit of a life goal.

So we go down to his basement (in rural, Western Washington) to take a look and buy it off him.

We got thereā€¦ and our jaws dropped.

It was a solid yellow model. Which made it a bit rare.

Then I go to look at the backā€¦ and the serial number plate had never been stamped on the top. Which, knowing the history of this machine, meant one thing: This was the first one that rolled off the assembly line.

The very first unit, of the very first arcade video game ever made.

So I did what any sensible person would do when a priceless piece of history is foundā€¦

I took it home, plopped it in my dining room, got my wife pregnant, had a daughter, put her in a high chair right next to it and gave her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

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That was a terrible 11th story to publishā€¦ how can anything else be even almost as awesome as that :stuck_out_tongue:

I am (was) a member of the short-lived yet very awesome Severed Fifth Street Teams \m/

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Well, Iā€™m in a book, ā€œThe Long Road Homeā€ by Martha Raddatz. Itā€™s about April 4, 2004 in Sadr city Iraq. I was in the 1st Cav Division. We lost 7 men and had over 40 wounded in a couple of hours. I earned a Purple Heart and an army commendation medal with a V for valor. But the gunshot wound to my back ended my career.

On the brighter side, I have twin 8 year old boys and a beautiful 16 month old daughter who I most likely wouldnā€™t of had if I kept up with my military career.

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I once wrote a comic book story that didnā€™t go anywhere but did help lead to the first Irish monthly comic book to have a color cover to be published which in turn got me and the guys a meeting with Clive Barker. A quick couple of pints in the attic of a Dublin pub where we presented him with a wooden carving of a pint of Guinness with ā€˜Devil Ludeā€™ climbing out of the head. Several other not so interesting and very boring adventures later Iā€™ve ended up in Oregon, taking pictures, cycling around town, being introverted and having the odd tipple.

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Really? I thought you were Analogue Man

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Analog Man? Where? Did I miss him again? Say, is that @bryanlunduke eating with his hands over there?

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Holy crap. This was fascinating to read. Would love to get you on the show for a quick interview about it. Interested?

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I left school at 16 because I didnā€™t like the subjects offered in 6th form. Seemed to work out ok.

Hey @jonobacon donā€™t know how badvoltagy (new term) me getting shot isā€¦lol. What would you guys want to discuss?

I just think it could be interesting to get you on for a 5 minute interview to ask about your experience. We could do it in the community recap segment. :smile:

What do you think?