I thought I would dodge it. I cringed when I heard it. But I guess I will go ahead and reveal things about myself. Sigh. Dani tagged me ( @dani3boyz on Twitter), so now I need to tell you six things you wouldn’t know about me from my blog. I’m going with a Presidential theme with the election coming up… but I don’t think I actually have six Presidential things to say so you’ll get some other tidbits.

1. My first flight was with Air Force One. Well, more like Air Force Two. My dad was covering Reagan in the White House, and they let members of the White House Press Corps bring family on a second presidential plane. So we flew to California, where Reagan was headed to his Santa Barbara ranch. And FYI, this flight ruined me for commercial flights. Flight attendants walked by every few minutes with food, drink, baskets of candy bars and treats, even Presidential swag like decks of cards and (yes, I am not making this up) packs of cigarettes with the Presidential seal. Ah, the ’80s.
2. I have had a deathly black thumb since birth. I know I write about growing vegetables, and they even grow and whatnot. But it has taken me 35 years to grow something without killing it. I am serious. You know those plants that are supposed to go in bars because nothing can kill them? Oh, I have killed them. But the fact I am growing my own vegetables is simple proof that being stubborn and never giving up does pay off. After 35 years.
3. Since Dani mentioned this one, I thought I would too. I started working when I was 13. And yes, it was at a newspaper. I worked at my mom’s newspaper, the Journal Messenger in Manassas. I did everything from working the inserter machine to typesetting (anyone remember this, where they paid someone to type the typewritten pages into the computer at the paper?) to handling complaints about newspapers that weren’t delivered. I think it actually gave me a grounded foundation when I later worked at newspapers. I’d already worked in the guts of the newspaper before I was ever a reporter.
4. I was a runner for the AP when I was 12 when Reagan was reelected. The AP used to hire temps to come in for Presidential election nights to pull copy off those wacky old monstrous black printer/fax wire feed looking things, walk them to the right reporter, return and repeat. It was very cool to me, being that I got to have a very late night, experience the excitement of the D.C. bureau on election night, and they actually paid me a tidy about at a time when minimum wage was $3-something. I think I got like $350 for one night, a small fortune to a 12-year-old.
5. I was a total metal head in high school. Not in the cheesed out glam metal way, but the Slayer, Megadeath, Metallica kind of way. I wore black all the time, and even had black nail polish. I also had long hair that went to my butt for the purposes of head banging. Well, that wasn’t the purpose but it came in handy for that.
6. I used to skip school to travel, not just slack off on the couch. My friends and I, on various occasions, skipped school and went to Philadelphia for cheese steaks, went to the beach, and on one occasion I called my dad (in Northern Virginia) from Manhattan to tell him I was at the local mall and wouldn’t be home for a few hours. Hey, I’m not sure what the problem was. These were just the early days of a future travel writer. For real. (Can you see me rolling my eyes? Because I am!)

That was fun!

Now, for me to annoy six people. I’m tagging:

• @calamityjen
• @sandraew
• @HippyGeek
• @mamikaze
• @feelslikehome
• @mmWine