Blog Tag: 5 Things You Don't Know About Me

Be forewarned, this has nothing to do with lean manufacturing.  Several of our blogger friends are engaged in a game of "blog tag," where we're telling the world five things you probably didn't know about each of us, and Mark Graban tagged me.  I'll provide links to the lists from some of the other bloggers at the end of this post.

1. I've bar-hopped with The Knack.  Back in the early 90's I lived in Mountain View, CA and I went to see The Knack at the Shoreline Amphitheater.  After the show we went to a local bar, and The Knack shows up.  My roommate, one of those unabashed outgoing marketing types, immediately befriended them, and after several pathetic renditions of "My Sharona" they asked us to show them some of the local bars.  That's about all I remember...
2. I've discussed politics with Larry King.  One of the side benefits of being on the AME board is that I get to meet the keynote speakers of the annual conferences.  A couple years ago Larry  King moderated a discussion on China.  That morning I was riding down the hotel elevator, and he gets on, alone.  I introduce myself and without thinking ask "what are your thoughts on Afghanistan?"  He mutters something about Yogi Berra and then gets off on the next floor, probably to find his agent and ask why he wasn't protected from one of us loony manufacturing types...
3. I probably invented the headlight in one of your cars.  Back in the mid-80's I was a manufacturing and development engineer for GTE/Sylvania (now Osram Sylvania), and got  the patents on lamp capsules with plastic bases that snap into plastic reflectors, dual filament lamps, and lenses that snap onto reflectors.  That became the 9004, 9005, and 9006 series of halogen headlamps, creating a nice royalty stream for Sylvania from GE and others.  I got a nice plaque for the wall...
4. My college roommate was responsible for the costliest act of eco-terrorism in U.S. history.  I roomed with Bill Rodgers in the early '80s at Rensselaer, and soon afterwards he dropped out and moved to Arizona where he joined Earth First! and the Earth Liberation Front.  In 1998 he was the leader of the group that set fire to several buildings at Vail, causing over $12 million in damage.  He was eventually captured, and then committed suicide.  I wrote about his story a few months ago.
5. As a young blond-haired kid, I explored the dark bowels of Lima, Peru during the Velasco military dictatorship of the late 70's.  Alone.  I lived in Lima from '73 to '80 while my dad was with the State Department.  On the weekends my parents dragged me to every museum in the country, which I hated then but appreciate now.  For some reason they were never concerned about me exploring the city on my own, even some of the dingiest areas.  The only negative experience was on my last solo experience, the night before we left the country, when I got my wallet stolen... which had all the addresses of my friends in it.

So there you have it.  I encourage you to participate via comments or links to your own blog.  Below are the lists from some of my fellow bloggers.

Mark Graban (Lean Blog) - Tom Ehrenfeld (Startup Garden) - Ellen Lamb (Answer Girl) - John Hunter (Curious Cat)

I'm sending a tag out to Mike L, Eric H, Pat Cleary, Michael Marx, Lee Fried