25 Random Things About Me

OK, I finally did it... it's been on Facebook for a while now, and I've had several of my friends put one together, so I figured, hey, I'll jump in, too... However, I wanted to put it on my blog instead of Facebook... Facebook's load time has sometimes irritated me, and I also want to practice putting more into this blog... I've been lax about posting.

Well, here we go:

1) I’m named after my Dad, but I’m not ‘Floyd Jr.’ After all, his entire middle name is ‘E.’ (really), mine is ‘Mark’.
2) I used to have fiery red hair… and then it turned brown about the same time my voice dropped two octaves.
3) My brother and I are both colorblind, so theoretically the only reason I know my hair was red is because people said it was… (the most common response to someone finding out you’re colorblind: “Then what color is THAT?”… and they point at some random object, most likely colored bright yellow or fire-truck red)
4) I may be in my twenties, but NOTHING can ever replace Double Stuft Oreos with milk.
5) I am witnessing myself turn into a guy that has a passion for hot sauce. Never intended to become that way, but when friends from several states give you hot sauce as a Christmas present, you start to get the hint…
6) At three years old and up, I would dissect every joke my Granddad ever told because he could make people laugh, asking him why was this joke or that joke funny. I wanted to understand humor. I have since been told many times I have my Granddad’s sense of humor. Words can’t describe how good that makes me feel.
7) I used to have the entire book of James memorized in the King James Version, word for word.
8) Two years prior to that, I was bordering on Atheism. I felt that ‘agnostic’ was stupid. You either believed in Something, or you believed in Nothing.
9) I used to compose music as a hobby. My senior year in high school I won First Place in a Gwinnett County-wide competition for the first musical piece I ever wrote. I later arranged it for a woodwind quintet. I actually have an official copyright on some of my music.
10) I hate being scared. One of the reasons I get myself to do crazy things is because I hate the idea of being too scared to do something… hence why I learned how to ride a motorcycle, and love riding.
11) That being said, I hate roller coasters. I’ve tried them again and again, and the feeling is the same. I’m not interested in spending time and money only to throw myself around loop-the-loops, giant drops, barrel rolls, or any of the like. AT ALL.
12) I am now a text maniac. I was still on pay-per-text a year and a half ago.
13) I have lived in Georgia, Louisiana, and Florida (Homes of UGA, LSU, and FSU). They all feel almost like home to me, but I’m still a bit restless anywhere I am.
14) When I was in elementary school, my brother and I slept in a Mickey Mouse child’s tent outside in the backyard one weekend. We continued the practice indoors on weekend nights. Eventually, the weekend project for my brother, step-brother, and I was to ‘build the tent’. This consisted of stretching ropes around chairs, beds and cabinets, laying sheets over those ropes to make a ‘roof’, and padding the floor with comforters, sleeping blankets, and pillows. Our tent had several ‘rooms’, but in one corner was always that same Mickey Mouse child’s tent. We would spend three hours putting the ‘tent’ together, only to crawl around in it for 30 minutes and then fall asleep from exhaustion.
15) I spell my last name ‘Rinehart’. Other people have spelled it Rhinehart, Rheinhart, Reinhart, Reinheart, Rhinehardt, or some amalgamation of these. My freshman year in high school, I had three different last names altogether (club pictures, etc.) In my senior year of high school, my Senior Page, a FULL page with my picture and my family’s personal comments to me, had my name misspelled… I still laugh at that one.
16) Food is most definitely a passion of mine… I love chocolate (the darker the better), cheese (ANY AND ALL TYPES!), chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, among other things… each one holds a special place in my heart. YUM.
17) On a related note, if I ever travel internationally (which includes traveling north of the Mason-Dixon line), I HAVE to try the food. I toke up on Pepto-Bismol (just in case) and try out the crazy stuff. Don’t ask what I had in China unless you REALLY want to know.
18) Although I rarely drink coffee anymore, whenever I do drink it I take it black. I decided that I was going to learn to drink it without anything… that way, it would never ‘need’ something… that, and I could bask in the joy of being too lazy to add anything to it.
19) Ever since I went to China in the summer of 2006, I heart green tea… I think it saved my life out there.
20) I love the subject of linguistics and language. It is something that has always fascinated me.
21) I did take gymnastics a long, long time ago. I don’t like to talk about it… probably because I’ve tried to block it out of my memory… stupid balance beam.
22) My proudest moment in a Java class I took in college was the creation of a program that created a virtual deck of cards, pulled a five card hand, and could tell me what kind of poker hand I was holding (whether I had a flush, straight, full house, etc.). I’m a nerd.
23) I enjoy teaching. I DON’T enjoy issuing administrative referrals, roll-taking, grading, lesson planning, answering countless e-mails, keeping track of all 20 (now 19) calculators, twenty-minute lunches at 11 o’clock, proctoring standardized exams, taking inventory… but I do it, and do it to the best of my ability, BECAUSE I enjoy teaching.
24) In college, and for reasons I don’t even know, I began using a loud, echoing ‘RRRRICA!’ call (with the R’s rolled very strongly), whenever I was excited and in an open area. Almost like a Confederate ‘YEE-HAW!’, but distinctly more south-of-the-border.
25) On a related note, I was awarded the ‘Best Laugh’ Superlative in UGA’s Redcoat Marching Band. People could say that they heard me on one 20-yard line when I was on the other. The RA on my hall in college once came up to me and told me that somebody down the hall on the other side of the building who was trying to sleep came to him with the following complaint: “Tell Floyd that, whatever it is, it’s not THAT funny.”… I apparently have a loud laugh.