I've been everywhere, man

I started writing a post last night that would be only tangentially related to this post. I started making about about the number of experiences I've had over the past 16 years. (Why 16? You'll see when I get around to completing that post.) I got so far afield, and took so long doing so - it got to be 11:30 PM, and I get up at 6 -- that I had to give up and go to bed. I got to thinking today that the experience group should stand on its own. If you'd asked me last week, without my thinking about it, I probably would have said I haven't done all that much during my life. Well, you tell me...

I've earned a bachelor's degree, the first and so far only person in my family to do so. I've worked for 14 different employers, not to mention movement from position to position within some of those companies. I've seen 36 states and 2 provinces of Canada.

I've shaken hands with the then-Governor of Delaware, and a candidate for President; I've also served 2 Filet-o-Fish sandwiches to the then-mayor of Wilmington, DE.

I've been held on streetcorner by the Secret Service (a whole group of us were), and questioned by a cop on horseback (that was just 2 of us).

I've been licensed to operate a radio station by the FCC, to sell insurance and financial products by the State of Minnesota, and to serve liquor by the State of Delaware. For one semester, I wrote a weekly column in my college newspaper . I was on the broadcast team for 2 seasons of Susquehanna University football games, and 5 Elkton (MD) High School baseball games (I got $25/game, and so technically fulfilled my childhood ambition of being a professional sportscaster). I've covered presidential, gubernatorial and mayoral campaign events, and served as a media witness to an execution.

Among major and minor league hockey, football and baseball, I've been to games in Philadelphia, Wilmington (at a stadium named for the late mayor who I served the fish sandwiches to), Baltimore, Boston, Ottawa, Washington DC, Greensboro (NC), Tampa, Ft. Lauderdale (more or less), San Jose, Albany, Glens Falls (NY), New Haven (CT), Milwaukee, Auburn Hills (MI), Minneapolis and St. Paul. The game in Auburn Hills was of the International Hockey League, which no longer exists. I was in attendance when the Philadelphia Phantoms won the American Hockey League's 1998 Calder Cup championship, and later that summer got my picture taken hold the Cup aloft. At the same time, I met and got a picture with team captain John Stevens, who is now the coach of the National Hockey League's Philadelphia Flyers.

I've watched the sun rise over the Atlantic and set over the Pacific (not on the same day). I've seen dolphins and pelicans off the coast Delaware (and Maryland and Virginia), seals sunning themselves on rocks in San Francisco Bay, alligators in Florida, and Sharks in San Jose. I've taken pictures from the top of the Washington Monument, the 86th-floor observation deck at the Empire State Building and the Golden Gate Bridge.

When I was about a year and a half old, I yelled at a nurse for mispronouncing my name (according to my mother). Right around my fourth birthday, I broke my leg when I fell out of our (moving) family car.

I've my picture taken on the ski jump medal stand from the Olympic site in Lake Placid, with the Stanley Cup (twice - once in Toronto and once in Tampa), on the front steps of Elvis Presley's house, and in a cell at Alcatraz. I've seen Niagara Falls, New Orleans' French Quarter, and what was then the tallest free-standing structure in the world (CN Tower in Toronto).

I've won intramural floor hockey championships in 4th and 5th grades; scored from second on an infield hit in the bottom of the last inning to win a Little League game; and have bowled a 229 game. I've held an actual Olympic gold medal.

I once wandered lost in a corn field, with a deflated raft around my shirtless shoulders as a guard (an ineffective one, at that) against the sun.

I've spent nearly 24 hours in a car driving straight through from Wilmington, DE to Houston, TX; about 12 straight hours at what is now called the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia watching 2 live hockey games which sandwiched watching a playoff football game on the TV screens on the concourse (the Philly teams won all 3 games, I might add); and damn near 200 consecutive seconds in an MRI tube.

I've volunteered at the Special Olympics, and helped build a house for Habitat for Humanity.

Among the bands I've seen in concert (since I'm sure I'm missing some): Iron Maiden, Frehley's Comet, Skid Row, Cheap Trick, Spin Doctors, Soul Asylum, Matchbox 20, Train, Five For Fighting, Kiss (in full makeup), Lenny Kravitz, The Black Crows, Oasis, Journey, Foreigner, Rush, The Steve Miller Band, John Mellencamp, The Jeff Healey Band, Bon Jovi, Eric Clapton, America, Three Dog Night, Billy Joel, Elton John, The Cure, The Badlees, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and The Glenn Miller Orchestra. I've also seen live performances by George Carlin, Kevin Nealon, Kevin Meaney and Louie Anderson.

I've moved 4 times, including out-of-state twice; have quit smoking 3 times; have bought 8 cars and a house.

I have 3 degrees of separation (which means that you have 4) with Yuri Gagarin, the first person in space.

I got married by a guy wearing a referee jersey.

That's what I came up with off the top of my head, and notes I scrawled on one Post-It note at work today. I guess I haven't done all that much, huh?