Tagged !!– and I Am It. 15 Things You Don't Know About Me — and Maybe You Shouldn't!

I got tagged on Facebook by Tammy Powley (my former editor at Creative Webblogging when I wrote the CoolPickings.com blog). She’s a really interesting person: a professor, accomplished jewelry designer, author of several books (of which I am behind on reviewing one of them). Her blog is Crafty Princess Diaries at www.tammypowley.com
If you are a friend of hers on facebook, you can see her list of 15 things you might not know about her. If you aren’t a friend, maybe you should be because her blog is pretty stellar and her jewelry-making books are killer! Extremely talented, she puts unique things together using unusual materials (ok they are unusual to me) and I had to ask her questions about what they were because to me “metal clay” is oxymoronic but not to jewelry-making people. If you are a jewelry designer, my apologies for being dense about actual materials other than gemstones.
Fifteen Things You Don’t Know About Me:
1) I love dogs but am allergic to cats. However cats love me– as in can’t wait to get next to me.

Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco. Detail of the architecture
2) I am a photographer. Not just your amateur but I actually had most of a professional photography program completed and then life stepped in and changed things.
So through-out this post, you will see photos I have taken.

View from an apt in Portero Hill in San Francisco.
3) I read a print newspaper or two every day. I like newspapers. I will be very sad when they are gone. I will be sad when magazines are gone though most are pretty much like department stores these days (interchangebale)
4) I don’t particularly like red wine. Actually the only red wine I will drink is a young pinot noir (Joseph Phelps specifically)

UCSF Biotech Campus Gym Building Skylight/Ceiling taken in San Francisco

5) I dream in technicolor, surround sound and immersion. Meaning I KNOW I am participating in the dream. Sometimes that’s good, sometimes it’s downright scary
6) I actually cook. Yes — I do, just not often and only when I want to which doesn’t always make everyone happy. (frozen works for me!) If I am cooking, I tend to riff off a recipe and tweak it– much the same way that I tweak the drink recipes when I am blogging about the 12 drinks of Christmas. (Maestro Doble Eggnog recipe was mine!! It was good too!)

Orange Sun in Ash-Laden Clouds during the Yorba Linda fire.
7) I love to eat certain kinds of seafood (but I am not a fan of sushi). I am a big fan of southern BBQ and I really like going out to dinner and/or drinks with friends. It’s more party like. (ps, I love parties. It’s just the kid in me I guess.)
8) I don’t drink beer— ever! I do like a good champagner or a great martini.
9) I am a morning person and yet I can be a night person too– depends on what’s happening and if fun, count me in!

Disneyland’s Mad Tea Party Ride — Tea Party Spin at Sunset (with the lights on)
10) Since I review a lot of DVDs of TV and movies, I often have marathon TV days/nights– particularly if it’s Dexter, 24, The Tudors, Eli Stone, The Unit, and other series where I watch everything back to back . I will watch 15 episodes in a row!
11) As much as I like to dress up, and go out, I am equally comfortable in a pair of jeans and a white tee. (Hanes happens to be in my closet right now.) However flip-flips are not my thing– Converse are.
12) I am a sci-fi, action, thriller, mystery film junkie, I can figure out the plot sequences and tell you who did it pretty quickly and I know what comes next. Doesn’t mean I don’t jump when it goes “boo!”

Sunset at the beach
13) I work out– a lot. Almost every day and I do all kinds of stuff including pilates (*mat & reformer), other floor work, stability ball, Wii, even a walk with the dog (or is that the dog taking me for a run? hmmm haven’t got that one down yet). Plus I love to dance, do workout dvds etc.
14) I am a big tech junkie. I love looking at new devices, programs, testing things out and playing with computers.

This is my dog. He’s crazy. He does sleep with me. He hogs the bed and he snores!!
15) I love racing cars. I love taking my car out on an open strip and letting it rip. Of course that doesn’t happen too often but if I have a wide open freeway at closer to 11 PM, I have been known to open it up and push the pedal. Some freak out, others just love that I am that free. (I feel the same way about skiing too)
16) I am a girly girl but I do love to watch hoops (basketball/Lakers/UCLA/USC) and I love to talk to men about what they think. I find it interesting to figure out what goes through their mind. I
(that’s a bonus tip)
Stevie Wilson