8 Random Things

I'm really good at starting new blogs to neglect. Not so good at keeping them up. I've decided to do a Smoke Eaters blog at http://smokeeatersblog.blogspot.com/ to keep track of all things Smoke Eater. It's all ready linked on their website without me asking.

I'm going to Prince George and Quesnel this weekend for hockey. Also, we recently had our Mountain FM Christmas party. It was a good night. There some pictures on my facebook if you're on there.

OK, so....

Loxy tagged me over at http://youareablog.blogspot.com/ and apparently I have to discuss eight random things about me. There are pretty much a million random things about me. I'm not sure where to even begin. I guess whatever comes to mind.

The rules: Each player lists 8 random facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 4 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog. (I hate tagging people to do things like this so I'm not sure if I'll bother. I like to BE tagged...)

1. When I was a kid I used to play fake sporting events in my yard. For example, in the summer I took a deflated soccer ball into the backyard and created fake baseball games. This was all pretty involved. I had written line-ups and kept track of the stats. I'd even do substitutions and everything. So when the "game" was over I could tell you that Expos third baseman Tim Wallach went 3-4 with two doubles and three RBIs. Oh, and of course I would loudly broadcast these games and create fake crowd noise. The nice thing about the deflated ball was that I could drill it as hard as I wanted with the bat and the furthest it would ever go is over the trees into my neighbour's yard. We had combined back yards so our dogs could run free. I don't know how many hours I spent doing this. I had another version of the game when I visited my grandparents in Gaspe. They had a big wood pile in the middle of their huge backyard and instead of me hitting a deflated soccer ball I would pitch at the log pile. However the ball would come off the rock pile would determine what happened to the "hitter." So if the ball got past me it was a single, if it went over my head it was a double, if it went into the larger grass it was a home run. Of course often FINDING the ball in the larger grass was a problem. I'm not sure I should be telling people this. I had versions of this game for street hockey as well. Some how I was able to recreate a 2 on 1 in street hockey with only one person. Don't ask. People on my street must have thought I was insane. "Messier takes the pass from Lowe, breaks in on goal... oooh he SCORES *crowd noise* What a goal, did you see that one, Harry?"

2 . I have lived with a lot of different animals at different times. When I was born my parents had a female black lab named Lady. They had to give her away when we moved to a rental. We then got a couple of mutts named Bo and Pete. We had to give them away when they kept running away and we felt they outgrew our small bungalow. When we moved to Blackburn Hamlet we got a cool terrier named BJ. Yes, his name was BJ. My brother insisted on naming the dog Brown Jr. (I can't even begin to figure out where he got that idea) and to appease him my parents settled on BJ. We were too young at the time to know why that name was so funny. He only lasted a year though.

After BJ died we got Sheaman, the most amazing dog I can ever imagine owning. He was a large pure Golden Retriever whose father was a British champion show dog named Shea O'Shea if I recall correctly. Anyway, Sheaman was a big ball of fur who was simply the kindest, smartest dog I can ever imagine. He had the biggest smile. He used to love laying on his back in the grass and twitching around until we'd rub his belly. I used to wrestle him and pin him but my brother always claimed Sheaman won anyway. He used to let little dogs walk all over him despite being much larger. Sheaman was the calmest dog imaginable. The only times I've ever seen him mad were when our neighbour's dog stole his bone and when one of the fathers on my hockey team would visit the house. He hated this poor guy. Mr. Cumming was the nicest man too, I don't know what our dog's issue was. Sheaman also used to escape our fenced in backyard to go cruising for chicks. He never gave away his secret for escaping even when we tempted him with a walk or cookies. Our neighbour eventually spotted him jumping onto his dog house and leaping from it to the fence. Smart cookie. He died a few years back.

When I first moved out it was to downtown Ottawa with a girl from my friend Ryan's class named Laura. That was an interesting experience. She had two cats that she never cleaned up after so I had to do it. I used to HATE cats, but they grew on me. I forget their names now, but the orange one always used to climb onto my shoulders and stay there no matter how long I was walking around. I thought that was kinda neat. After that it was a couple of years without a pet until Amy came to live with me in Owen Sound for a while. She brought her dog Tinker with her for the summer. Tinker was in love with me. I used to scratch her for hours and no matter how long it had been she would still keep poking me for more. "The poke" become a source of much amusement. What an interesting little dog she is. That was also when I bought my first pet. Mowgli is a mix of a Westie and a Shitzu. He became my companion through my break up and my move to BC. It took quite a while to train him properly, likely because I wasn't hard enough on him, but he is a great dog. He loves to sit by the window and watch people and cars. He also loves to bury himself under my blankets and sheets by my feet to steal my warmth. Mowgli now lives with my parents and their dog Rileigh in Ottawa because my work schedule takes me on road trips too often to have a dog by myself. I miss the little guy a lot.

3. I had a date for the prom but wasn't allowed to bring her. This girl I knew was a friend of a friend. She was really quite hot actually, but I hadn't found a good in with her yet. I don't know how it came up when we were all hanging out, but she heard I didn't have a date for my prom and said she'd go. I like a girl who is willing to invite herself if I'm being too much of a chicken shit. Anyway, I went to go and get my extra ticket for her and Lisa refused to give me one because I was a couple of HOURS past the deadline. First of all, I had no idea this deadline even existed. Secondly, it was mere hours! She easily could've made it work but was just being difficult. As a result I went to the prom by myself and actually had to get pictures done in Scott's back yard with him. I guess Fitzsimmons was my date! We then had to play bodyguard for Aaron and Lea while their parents snapped endless pictures along the way to the prom itself. Then I got really drunk and made out with some girl I didn't know in Hull. Great night!

4. I remember the very first time I was ever on the radio for something more than a song request. Even when I was a youngster I used to listen to talk radio. I was a loser no question. I was listening to Steve Madely on CFRA in Ottawa. This was when his show was on from 9 to noon. Now he does the mornings. Anyhow, they were discussing changing the school year. The proposal was to split up summer break into several smaller breaks. So you'd have like four smaller breaks all throughout the year instead of one big summer. My objection was that if we had part of our break time in the winter we couldn't use our bikes. This was a big problem for me since I was at the age where I would be allowed to stay at home alone, but I wasn't near being able to drive. Bikes allowed me to go to any friend's house, to the mall, to the movies, to the store, to the fast food joints... this was an essential part of the summer. They didn't really subscribe to my theory about the importance of biking to a good school break, but I still think it had some merit!

5. My favourite colour is orange. I have no idea how this happened exactly, but it has influenced me in a number of ways. For example, my favourite sunglasses that I ever had were orange. I can remember how upset I was when I broke them. We replaced them with red Transformers sunglasses, but I was never as satisfied. I also always prefer orange flavour. Whether it's a popsicle or some kind of candy, orange is always my preference. Don't really like _oranges_ but I do like orange juice. I also had this wicked pair of orange pants once. Actually I used to get badgered about wearing them quite a bit. I think they were relatively in style at the time. Probably couldn't get away with wearing them now. Finally, my favourite hockey team used to have orange in their colour scheme. But the Oilers dropped the orange for copper. How many Stanley Cups have they won since that change, huh? Now I'm the play by play voice of the Trail Smoke Eaters. Their colours? Orange and black.

6. My middle name is my Mom's last name. People always have a hard time with it. Especially when I'm telling them my e-mail address. My name is Shawn Sams Mullin and so my e-mail is shawnsamsmullin@hotmail.com but whenever I explain this to people they always seem to think it's Shawn Sam Mullin. Sams isn't that common a name to begin with. I actually am really proud of my name in that way. My mom kept her last name after getting married. It's something I really respect and I think I would prefer that if I ever get married my wife would do the same. I dunno, it honours your family I think. To link our name to mom without doing the hyphen thing, our middle names are connected to her family. For me I got her last name as my middle name while Kyle's middle name is Stewart... my Grandmother's maiden name. I think it's a good tradition to start and a great way to honour every part of my family.

7. I've had an eyebrow piercing twice. The first time I did it years ago when my friend Sarah was visiting Ottawa and we decided to do it together. I can't remember what inspired this decision, but it was a pretty radical thing for me to do given how suburban and generic my style generally was. Now I don't consider it remotely radical, but then it sorta felt like it was. I've always liked how it looked. However, when I got a job working at Securitas I had to take out both my eyebrow and ear piercings. I thought that was kind of lame considering at Securitas we didn't do anything close to resembling work. We would sit at desks and monitor things. We would also walk around and monitor things. If anything actually happened... we called the real police and were ordered to do nothing. My friend Chris' father works for Securitas. Well he did, I think he still does. He works at the National Art Gallery which is the one place I refused to work. You literally had to stand there for hours and hours and hours in one or two rooms making sure people didn't touch art. You couldn't even sit down. I liked the jobs where no one was around most of the time and I could listen to the radio or go on the computer. I also enjoyed working security at Parliament Hill where we looked after the gallery for question period. Once we got everyone inside I was able to go and watch question period every day. For a political junkie that was actually pretty entertaining.

Anyhow, several years later when I moved here to Castlegar I decided I wanted to get the piercing done again. I wasn't on TV anymore (which I was for a while in Owen Sound) and so I figured it was fine. I tried to plan to go with some friends several times and it never worked out. Finally I just went on my own to Nelson and got it done. For whatever reason this time it took forever to completely settle. Now it's fine. It's not quite in the same spot as last time, but I like it. I don't know how long I can keep an eyebrow piercing until I'm too old for it, but I figure I've got lots of time yet.

8. I sometimes give the wall a high five. Actually often it's more of a side five. I can't really explain this behaviour. I've been doing this for years. I'll walk by a corner of the walls in my house and just like... slap it. But not in a violent way, in a "high five" kind of way. Don't ask me to explain this I have no idea why I do it.

Well now that I'm done that I don't think anyone will ever want to talk to me again!

I'm supposed to tag people but I really don't think I have enough people who read my blog to bother so sorry Loxy I'm gonna skip that part.