Cammy Bean, Manager of Instructional Design at an e-Learning company and one of my favorite e-learning bloggers, tagged me for a 7 Things You Don’t Need to Know About Me meme. Like Cammy, I did an 8 Random Facts meme some time ago which, reading now, reminded me that these types of activities feel a lot like going out to Friday happy hour after work with friends. But without the booze, karaoke, or Monday morning shame.

Actually, I think memes are an interesting way to get to know other bloggers beyond what they normally should write about if they were concerned about such things as SEO, professionalism, and other such nonsense. So, for those of you that don’t blog, this is yet one more reason to do so: memes. Blurt out for the whole world random stuff that could potentially be read aloud by a sibling with a grudge at your next family party. Or become the reason you never got that job interview.

Here’s my 7 things:

1. I cried at the movie Marley & Me last night and cried some more when I got home to help my 13 year-old dog go outside. And, I could probably cry some more right now because he’s sleeping at my feet as he does every day.
2. I had two big, old maple trees outside of my house (and office) that I looked at every day. I had one cut down because it was going to fall on the house and I worried about it every time we had high winds. I paid a ‘tree guy’ $400 to remove it and as he left he said, “you should really be more worried about that other tree. I hope you have insurance on your cars.”  So now I look at the remaining tree every day and wonder…and worry when we get high winds.
3. I have hundreds of trees. (this for the treehuggers that bummed re: #2)
4. I let my youngest create his bedroom in the cubbyhole under the stairs and secretly want his real bedroom for an office but then realize that he will get taller and won’t fit under the stairs anymore and then I think that I could have an office in the cubbyhole under the stairs if I put some electrical outlets in there because, face it, I’m not getting any taller.
5. I went to several stores looking to buy the DVD for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Each store only had the first 5 movies. I learned from a clerk that the movie was coming to theaters July ’09. (Note to self: lay off the potions)
6. I met a teacher from Virginia at my son’s hockey game here in rural New York this weekend who was visiting her nephew. We talked wikis, blogs,  a conference where she me Daniel Pink & Alan November, and Twitter. I realized then that I rarely meet people offline who I can talk to about my work.  (other than at Syracuse University where I am a student of ID but that’s different conversation entirely)
7. I am spending my kids college tuition.

OK. So now it’s time to tag 7 others…

1. Christine Martell
2. Kristina Schneider
3. Karyn Romeis
4. Clark Quinn
5. Eduardo M. Peirano
6. Gary Woodill
7. Jane Bozarth

I’ve participated in a couple of memes in the past. Most I avoid but this is kind of fun and interesting in that it involves visualization. This one comes from a friend with a blog that is NSFW (hence is not listed here on this corporate, professional, all-biz blog : )

This is a meme where you build a mosaic collage by answering questions using images.

Za rules:

1. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Google Image Search or some type of search engine for pictures.

2. Using only the first page of results, pick one image. You can’t search forever for a certain image.

3. Copy and paste each in any program that you can post the pictures in a mosaic pattern.

The questions:

1. What is your first name?…Janet

2. What is your favorite food?…cashew chicken (because I have a wicked craving)

3. What high school did you go to?…Westmoreland High School (and haven’t been back since graduating)

4. What is your favorite color?…black

5. Who is your celebrity crush?…John Cusack. Really.

6. What is your favorite drink?…red wine.

7. What is your dream vacation?… scuba diving in Grand Cayman (honeymoom trip – awesome!)

8. What is your favorite dessert?…chocolate cream pie, without reservation

9. What do you want to be when you grow up?…relaxed

10. What do you love most in life?… Kids. And now, in retrospect I probably should’ve said Andy. (good thing he doesn’t read this)

11. What is one word that describes you?… quirky.

12. What is your blog name?… Brandon Hall Analyst Blog.

Feel free to tag yourself if you’re interested. I’m not going ask anyone else to spend 30 minutes procrastinating. Not that something like this couldn’t be real work…

Suffering from a case of bloggers block, I was grateful relieved ashamed to have responded immediately to Heather Ross’ tag on the “Top 5 of the Eighties” music meme originating with Rob Wall.

What does this have to do with learning? Well, as a young adult in the 80s, my memory was fuzzy so, of course, I turned to the Web for “performance support.” A little jog of the memory was just the ticket. (It would’ve been more fun though to have tried to remember which inevitably would have led to reminiscing about the 1983 club show by Twisted Sister that briefly made me fear for my own safety).

Perhaps an explanation. I’ve listed albums from the 80s that I think were influential to my favorite genre – heavy metal. I’ve purposely avoided listing any glam metal bands because, let’s face it people, metal it ain’t. Although fans of black metal probably don’t think my bands are metal either.

These are not necessarily all I listened to (thank goodness because my neck would be like, huge with all that head banging).

Motörhead – Ace of Spades (1980) – you can tell it’s a metal band by the umlaut

Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast (1982)

Twisted Sister – Under the Blade (1982) (before the pop/glam shenanigans…I’m not “gonna take it”)

Megadeth – Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying? (1986). See VH1s behind the music on this one.

Metallica – Master of Puppets (1986). Several Metallica albums could be listed here. Also a good behind the music watch.

A quick check of my iPod playlist today, tells me others that stuck were…Judas Priest, Rush (not really metal), Accept, Guns ‘n Roses (bordering pop), Kiss (not really this genre except maybe Ace’s solos live), Scorpions and, of course, songs by those listed above.

I’m going to break the rules and not tag but welcome you to tag yourself and link back.

(As an aside…my daughter saw albums when we were moving, asked me how I listened to them then wondered – seriously – how I carried my ‘record player’ around outside. Geesh. Kids. This is why we spent so much time in the basement).

Cammy Bean tagged me on the 8 Random Facts About Me meme (gee, thanks Cammy! I owe you one.)
If you read this blog you already know at least 100 random facts about me so what the hell, 8 more won’t kill you.

First, the Rules:
1) Post these rules before you give your facts
2) List 8 random facts about yourself
3) At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names, linking to them
4) Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they’ve been tagged

Here you go:
1. I do not like to share diet Pepsi with kids who are eating Doritos.
2. I am 5 feet tall (or short) depending on your perspective
3. I was a foreign exchange student in high school in Belgium.
4. As a teenager, I once cut off all my hair because of a bad perm and made my mother cry as a result (sorry Mom!)
5. I once changed my clothes for a job interview in the parking lot in front of security cameras (which, regrettably, I found out later). I did not get the job.
6. I am left handed.
7. I married an mechanical engineer.
8. I suck at math.

And I tag (sorry)…
1. Lynn Wernham
2. Richard Nantel
3. Gary Woodill
4. Tom Werner
5. Ron Lubensky
6. Karyn Romeis
7. Kelly Christopherson
8. Artichoke