A number of people have told me their favorite blog was my “10 Things you don’t know about me”. Well, here are 5 more
I was asked to try out for the Donny and Marie Osmond show as a backup singer. I was not interested in being anything but the LEAD singer with mike in my hand and a whole band around me.
My generation is the first generation in the USA without a mandatory draft to fight in a world war or major war. I missed the draft of the tail end of the Vietnam war by the skin of my chinny chin chin. My father fought in World War II in the Navy on a destroyer. He observed fellow ships go down and watched dozens if not hundreds of sailors get eaten up by sharks in a feeding frenzy as their destroyer went down to the bottom of the ocean. His ship was hit by multiple Kamikaze planes and my dad to this day rides with his Purple Heart license plate from his Kamikaze war wounds - shrapnel right in his derriere. He can’t talk about his experiences in the war, too painful much like I cannot talk about the loss of my son Eric. His ship was very similar to the picture posted in this blog. My grandfather Augustine Schmuki fought in World War I.
For the real techies out there I started programming in Oracle version 3 with a release date of 1981. To install Oracle Development version I had 70-100 CD’s to install, one by one, only to find out # 48 of 70 is bad, have to order it and start all over when it arrives. My how times have changed.
I grew up using a rotary dial telephone. My first cell phone was a Motorola Brick. Motorola’s first cell phone cost 4-5 thousand dollars and had about 30 minutes of talk time. For the record that first phone was NOT the Motorola Brick, but was more like the Motorola Elephant! I just purchased Apples new iPhones 10s max that has more processing power than many main frame computers I grew up staring down in the raised floor data centers. Motorola dominated the cellular phone market for years, and my kids have never even seen one.
I played tennis with Bjorn Borg once during the inaugural year of the Tennis Champions tour. I enjoyed surprising him with my play. Ok I know he was just toying with me. For those who don’t know who Bjorn Borg is…. He is a Swedish former world No 1 tennis player widely considered to be one of the greatest tennis player of all time. He won 11 Grand Slam singles including six French Opens, and five consecutive Wimbledon Championships.
There you have it. Hope you enjoyed it.
Tom