The Rabid Paladin

I think I'm the last blogger on the planet who hasn't yet done the whole "5 things you might not know about me" thing. I was tagged by my brother a couple months ago and by Jay a couple weeks ago. Anyway, in case the fad hasn't entirely faded (fadded?), here goes.

1. I'm the oldest of 11 children and Melissa (my wife) is the oldest of 9. This means that our kids have 18 aunts and uncles before counting marriages. Counting marriages, it now comes to 29. 30 if you count committed gay partnerships. Another of my sisters is getting married next month so that'll bring the grand total to 31 aunts and uncles. Geometric progression in action.
2. I always dream in color and have for as long as I can remember. I can also control my dreams if something goes wrong, with the sole exception of ocean tides for some reason. That means the only nightmares I have any more is when I'm body surfing or walking along the coast and the tide comes in faster than I can get out of the way (uh, guess that means I can't control cliffs, either).
3. One of my ancestors (mother's side) fell off the Mayflower. Maybe that's where the ocean thing comes from. Fortunately for future generations he caught a rope and held on really tight until they could pull him back on board.
4. I'm an active Mormon and have been all my life (you may have suspected as much from #1 above). I'm not one to do something just because it's tradition, nor am I prone to believe something just because I was raised to do so. On the other hand, I'm not one to reject something for those reasons either. If that isn't unique enough, how about this addendum: I've never been drunk and only ever even swallowed alcohol while on my 2 year mission for the church. That wasn't so much a lapse as it was a matter of those wily Germans putting alcohol in practically anything and not always being too concerned with identifying it as such.
5. Melissa and I both love books. We like owning them in addition to reading them. Our library currently consists of just over 3,900 books, though some of those are books we've taken from destitute circumstances and are committed to finding a good home for (i.e. people were getting rid of them and we'll be selling them off eventually). Melissa is involved with the Association for Mormon Letters, so we more or less live in an atmosphere of books. We tend towards Science Fiction and Fantasy, but my favorite genre is actually Romance. If it weren't so hard to find good romance, we'd have more of those as well. I consider good romance to be those books that don't rely on the sex to sell. Don't let the proclivities fool you, though: our taste runs pretty wide, so you'll find just about any genre represented in there somewhere.

Well, thanks for reading (both of you). All the people I can tag seem to have been tagged already. I suppose that means 7 more years of winter or something. I'm not sure. Not that I'm superstitious or anything...