Many of my friends have participated in one of those “pass-it-along” blog games and I recently was tagged to join in the fun. The theme on this one is to share six random facts about yourself that most people probably don’t know about you, so without further ado, here are the rules and my six:

Rules:

1. Post the rules on your blog
2. Write 6 random things about yourself
3. Tag 6 people at the end of your post
4. If you’re tagged, DO IT and pass on the tag

1. I love batter. Whenever I bake something or come into the kitchen when Cynthia is busy cooking, I always sneak a taste of the batter of what’s about to be baked. The disturbing part is it doesn’t really matter what the ingredients are or how raw the batter is, I feel compelled to taste it. If there’s an electric beater involved, I will lick both metal beaters clean.

2. I’m a closet motorcycle lover. I watch American Chopper religiously, have read two books on people who have ridden their bikes around the world and seen the DVD series that accompany them, and always turn my head when I see one drive past me. I’ve had thoughts about wanting to own one someday, even to the point of mentioning it to Cynthia, who replied saying “You know, I see you owning a Jeep.” (translate: “Are you nuts?”)

3. I sometimes wish I did some sort of manual labor job for a living. I’m envious of my friends who are extremely gifted in working with their hands. I think most men wish they possessed the skills to do most jobs themselves. I think that working a job that has me at a computer day in and day out makes me long to be outdoors or in a workshop building something with my hands. This comes up several times while watching American Chopper, so these two facts paired together can create a fair amount of unrest in me.

4. I’m a tech and gadget freak. Although I don’t own all of the latest tech gadgets, I probably know more about them than those that do. I listen to a lot of geeky, tech related podcasts and visit sites that talk all day about the new tech news, gear, industry developments, etc. Maybe I should use this knowledge and market myself as some sort of technology/gadget consultant to those who actually do spend their money on that stuff. Maybe then I could actually afford to buy something like an iPhone or Nikon D700.

5. I’m a very oily person. I have to take showers almost twice a day by default and it doesn’t matter if I’ve showered the night before, I have to re-shower in the morning. The benefit to this though is that I tan easily.

6. When living overseas while growing up my dream was to work at Taco Bell after we would eventually move back to the US. I loved that place so much. My family would make a routine stop at the only Taco Bell location in London on our way to the airport in order to have our fix. When we finally did move back to Houston, I learned just how low the aim of my aspirations had been. Instead I worked the deli meat section of Randall’s and have forever remained on the customer side of the Taco Bell counter.

I don’t know who I would tag right now, I’ll have to get back to you guys on rule 4.

Veerle Pieters wrote a great article on how to use Illustrator’s LiveColor toolset. I have yet to actually use this feature myself because I had no idea how to use it. Thanks to Veerle I’ll have to try it out, it looks very interesting.

Jeremy Cowart just wrote a post on his blog about an interview he did with American Lifestyles Magazine and posted a link to a pdf of the article. It’s a good read. I laughed at his answer to the question “Talk about a moment you will never forget”:

Before a recent trip to Rwanda, I was asked to shoot the advertising for a show on Fox called “Prison Break”. So while I was in Rwanda, I would watch episodes of the show on my iPod as I lay in my mud hut. I became incredibly addicted to the show and watched the finale on my flight back home. I flew straight to Dallas from Rwanda to do the shoot and I will never forget walking into the hotel lobby and the entire cast was just hanging out together on the couches. I was like “Wait! He just stabbed you! And you’re supposed to be missing a hand! And you guy’s aren’t friends!” It was too surreal.

Nothing like finding a few minutes to browse the RSS feeds and find gorgeous work by one of your favorite designers to pull you out of a blog post rut.

Scott Hansen knocks out some more amazing posters. Fantastic colors, illustrations and textures. I’m taking notes.

I know I haven’t written much over the past couple of weeks and I really want to get back into writing new posts, but life has been busy. Between work and taking care of a newborn I’ve had little time to devote to my blog, much less think. Hopefully next week will be better so that I can get back into the flow.

Michael Kenna proves his talent to me again with this shot of the Ratcliffe Power Station in England. While he finds beauty in it, I would probably move on because it’s foggy.

Illustrator Kevin Cornell has spent the past 5 months working on illustrations for the graphic novel The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. He recently wrote this post talking about his involvement with the project and displaying a vast amount of sketches. Cornell is an awesome artist and is the featured illustrator over on A List Apart, another fantastic website.