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I have been tagged by Heather at Microsoft, Nathan Gilliatt, and search engine expert Alan Rimm-Kaufman.  In this post, Alan does a great job of explaining what "blog tag" is.  Basically, you pick five people from the blogoshere and ask them to reveal five little known facts about themselves.

Normally, I would not share the following things about myself.  My blog's already very personal.  However, not one -- but three -- people I like and admire have asked me to take things farther in this regard, so here goes.

1. My wife and I are expecting our fifth child in June. When I informed my old friend, Luke McBee from South Carolina, about this, he drawled "Buddy, that's an ass o' youngans."  So we're officially up to an "ass" now (as opposed to a gaggle or a flock).  To my amazement, I have discovered that parental love is pie-enlarging, not pie-rearranging.  The more kids you have to love, the more love you have to give.  Go figure.


2. I was confirmed in the Roman Catholic Church in 2005 (Mel Gibson and priest scandals aside).  Get this:  Having attended Catholic high school, historically I have hated the Catholic Church.  Then came 9/11, after which my wife began attending regular Sunday Mass.  Soon we were very different people.  As we drifted apart, I remember thinking "There's no way I would have married this lady had I known she'd become Catholic."  I was pissed!  But I immersed myself in Christianity just to see what she saw in it.  The things we do for love.  Imagine the person you love most falls into a river, and you've either got to jump in and drag them back to shore, or jump in and float away with them.  Same deal.  As I picked apart Christianity premise-by-premise, I was impressed by the counter-intuitive nature of it all.  One by one, the ideas of Machiavelli, Kant, Nietzsche, Freud, Marx, and Sartre bit the dust before my eyes.  There was no fire and brimstone.  No visions of hell.  Only logic.  It began as a purely intellectual pursuit, and it wasn't until my wife and I began to struggle with the possibility of our toddler son having autism that I really began to embrace my faith.  One day, as my son and I sat in a rainy PetSmart parking lot, I began to wonder if he would grow up to be the Rain Man.  The hopelessness was terrifying, and money was of no use (a first).  As I tried to envision his future, I thought to myself, "Well, if I can't give him a conventional education, at least I can give him faith."  Then it dawned on me:  "If it's good enough for him -- isn't it good enough for me?"  After all, I've seen lots of folks who were too smart for their own good, but I've never seen someone who's too virtuous for his own good.  And on a practical level, my experience has been that faith will get you through times with no money better than money will get you though times with no faith.  Having said that, you will never see me moralize or evangelize on this blog.  Nor will I ever judge a candidate or client against my faith.  It's a very personal thing, and I wouldn't have brought it up had I not been tagged three times.  The End.


3. I eat the same thing every day.  Food to me is like gas to a car.  It needs only what it needs.  Anything more will worsen its performance.  Weird, I realize.


4. I do not understand Web 2.0, and I tend to invest heavily in marketing and technology because the internet can be a cruel mistress.  YouTube wasn't even conceived 24 months ago, and already it has the major TV networks running for cover.  Amazing.  What's to become of recruiting?  Only the paranoid survive.  In 2006, I bought several hundred domains and spent a fortune on candidate sourcing software and databases.  Let's see what happens.


5. I am on a Wayne Krantz kick.  For whatever reason, I can't carry a tune to save my life, but I can play the drums in all sorts of odd time signatures (5, 7, 13, etc).  Not sure why.  Anyway, about six months ago, I discovered Keith Carlock on Drummerworld and I was totally blown away.  Usually, complex rhythms aren't beyond me, even if I can't play everything I hear.  But when I heard Mr. Carlock play the drums, I couldn't even understand the structure of the songs, much less play them.  He's a sick individual.  So I started buying all of the music on which he plays, which led me to Wayne Krantz.  Holy cow.  It's like his band has one mind.  See for yourself below, and watch how the band shifts gears at 0:38 sec and 1:51 sec.

People I'm tagging:  Nobody.  Self-disclosure is curvilinear.  Stop the madness.  No, wait.  I'm missing an opportunity.  Has anyone tagged the the Z-list yet?  If not, then perhaps it's Time to tag the following people ...

1. You
2. Creative Think
3. Soloride
4. Movie Marketing Madness
5. Blog Till You Drop!
6. Get Shouty!
7. One Reader at a Time
8. Critical Fluff
9. The New PR
10. Own Your Brand!
11. OTOInsights
12. bizandbuzz
13. Work, in Plain English
14. Buzz Canuck
15. New Millenium PR
16. Pardon My French
17. Troy Worman's Blog
18. The Instigator Blog
19. AENDirect
20. Marketing Hipster
21. The Marketing Minute
22. Funny Business
23. The Frager Factor
24. Mindblob
25. Open The Dialogue
26. Word Sell
27. Note to CMO:
28. That's Great Marketing!
29. Shotgun Marketing Blog
30. BrandSizzle
31. bizsolutionsplus
32. Customers Rock!
33. Being Peter Kim
34. Pow! Right Between The Eyes! Andy Nulman’s Blog About Surprise
35. Billions With Zero Knowledge
36. Working at Home on the Internet
37. MapleLeaf 2.0
38. darrenbarefoot.com
39. Two Hat Marketing
40. The Engaging Brand
41. The Branding Blog
42. Drew's Marketing Minute
43. Golden Practices
44. Viaspire
45. Tell Ten Friends
46. Flooring the Consumer
47. Kinetic Ideas
48. Unconventional Thinking
49. Buzzoodle
50. Conversation Agent
51. The Copywriting Maven
52. Hee-Haw Marketing
53. Scott Burkett's Pothole on the Infobahn
54. Multi-Cult Classics
55. Branding & Marketing
56. Popcorn n Roses
57. On Influence & Automation
58. Bullshitobserver
59. Servant of Chaos
60. converstations
61. eSoup
62. Dmitry Linkov
63. aialone
64. John Wagner
65. Nick Rice
66. CKs Blog
67. Design Sojourn
68. Frozen Puck
69. The Sartorialist
70. Small Surfaces
71. Africa Unchained
72. Perspective
73. gDiapers
74. Marketing Nirvana
75. Bob Sutton
76. ¡Hola! Oi! Hi!
77. Shut Up and Drink the Kool-Aid!
78. Women, Art, Life: Weaving It All Together
79. Community Guy
80. Social Media on the fly
81. Jeremy Latham’s Blog
82. SMogger Social Media Blog
83. Masey.com
84. Dennis Smith
85. Jason Alba
86. Jim Durbin
87. Jason Davis



"Site Info"

Comments

[Recruiting Animal]

I don't know how I missed this but it's great. Of course, there's plenty to argue about but I still enjoyed it.

[Troy Worman]

Thanks for the link. Nice blog. I particularly like your recent Blog Branding post. Keep on bloggin'!

[Jay Allen]

Harry,
Wow - I spoke with you a few months ago (I'm actually around the corner), but I never realized we had so much in common. I have four right now (a gaggle at this point) and I also came into the Catholic Church as an adult (along with my wife). So it's good to hear there are others out there with eerily similar stories.

[Dan J]

Holy crap! That's a lot of people you've tagged!

[Chris Kieff]

"Never underestimate the power of a small group of dedicated people to change the world. Indeed, it's all that ever have."
by Margaret Mead

The Z-list is the embodiment of this quote.

Thanks,
Chris
http://www.msco.com/blog

[Sean Moffitt]

First oif all thanks for the Link Love on the Z-list...always appreciated. Secondly, I was looking through your Viral Garden rankings this week and you're just zooming up the list. I was trying to see which posts or activity or stuff I can't see that makes you the fasteest climber of the week?

Cheers and hears to a great 2007!

[Jason Alba]

Hm, number 85 on the Z list, huh? That is like the end of the end. Here's my 5 things (with a bonus sixth thing) http://www.jibberjobber.com/blog/archives/295, and a question:

What is it that you eat? I'm intrigued by this concept of varied foods as my years in Mexico was.... the same thing! Here in the U.S. if we eat the same thing three meals in a row we're boring!

[Sharon Sarmiento]

Hi Harry--you get extra points for creatively integrating the Z-listers with the tagging game :-)!

Loved your 5 disclosures--I can relate to you on the Catholocism deal. I was born and raised and schooled Catholic. I fell away for a while, but now as an adult I'm fascinated with it and seeing it through new eyes. Perhaps we just come back to what we've been raised with and what we're comfortable with.

I've been previously tagged, so I've got my answers ready:

http://www.esoupblog.com/2006/12/esoup_tagged.html

All the best!
Sharon (eSoup)

[Doug Karr]

It's coming full circle! I was tagged before I made the Z-list!

http://www.douglaskarr.com/2006/12/11/blog-tag-5-secrets-about-me/

Nice job!

[Heather D]

Hi Harry - Thanks for the mention on the Z-List. I know a lot of folks are looking for a comprehensive list, so this is great! Your 5 things are so reflective and honest. It was refreshing to read and instantly gave me insight to you and your blog. I'll be back! Thanks for sharing!

[mindblob]

Hello Harry,
Great to read your 5 things.
Totally agree with Cam about "faith".

Thank you for the mention in the Z-List. Wait a minute... hey, you tagged me! LOL! Excellent idea!
Here is my contribution (uh... I'm not lazy, it's just that I've been tagged already!) ; )

http://mindblob.typepad.com/mindblob/2006/12/mindblob_tagged.html

Best wishes from mindblob.

[Cam Beck]

"faith will get you through times with no money better than money will get you though times with no faith."put

Beautifully said.