Little known facts about me

Well, in response to a challenge by Sacha who was equally challenged by his friend, I have decided to take part in this web blog "little known facts" article about posting a few things about me that not too many people might know. So in keeping on with the task:

1. I'm deathly afraid of heights! This from the pilot?? I know, but I can handle flying quite fine as I'm attached to a machine that has a purpose in the air and I feel secure within it. The same can not be said for me standing on the edge of a tall building, or scaffolding, or at the top of a large ladder etc. I get up there and get a bit weak at the knees, as if I don't trust myself enough not to fall. So I guess it's more of a fear of falling, but I've got it pretty good. Younger I would never go on any kinds of roller coasters or things like that. Now I'll get on a roller coaster, but have a tricky time still at the top of anything with any height to it. But upside down in a plane doesn't really phase me so much, go figure.

2. I just about won a "cutest baby" contest back when I was a few months old. My parents entered a photo of me into a contest for some cash and baby paraphernalia through the paper I believe. The winner would get their picture published and a bunch of free baby stuff and money. I did not win however, but did come in second! Not too shabby. I have seen the picture that they submitted and I can't believe I didn't win! There must have been some bribing of the judges or some other injustice. :)

3. I have a scar on the bottom of my second and third toes on my left foot. This is from when they were cut open pretty good one fateful summer afternoon as a child. Me and best bud Ian were out in the backyard running through the sprinkler when I decided I would try a karate kid style kick as I went flying through the stream of water. Well, needless to say I hadn't planned it out too well and ended up jumping onto the sprinkler with one foot as the other went sky high in spectacular fashion. I hit the plastic sprinkler which then shattered and a piece of the broken plastic then sliced my two toes open pretty good. I had to go to an emergency clinic and have stitches. To this day, the most pain I believe I have ever experienced was receiving the "freezing" needles into my toes. Man oh man that was brutal. Afterwords, as the freezing wore off I can still to this day remember the throbbing pain I experienced all night in those toes. OUCH!

4. I inadvertently tried to kill my instructor and I twice while I was first learning how to fly back in the summer of 1998. The first time was when I was being shown a technique to change the mixture of the fuel going into the engine to maximize power. You were to pull the knob out a little until you saw a slight drop in rpm and then push the knob back in a little so that the rpm returned. Simple enough, but as my instructor told me "ok, now pull out the knob..." I reamed the knob all the way out before he could finish his sentence and stopped the flow of fuel to the engine of the plane. The engine sputtered a few times, and the instructor quickly slammed the knob back in to return fuel to the engine, it started back up fine and we were on our way. Didn't do that ever again wrong! The other time I was doing maneuvers low level and lost track of my airspeed as I was doing turns. I happened to look up at about the same time as my instructor did to see we were just on the verge of stalling the plane, I jammed the throttles up and regained control as we were trained to do, but we were so close to the ground that had we actually stalled the plane, it was unlikely that a recovery would have been possible. So, never did that one again either! Now don't let this alter your views on my flying abilities, haha, everyone has "experiences" during their first few flights, and I'm happy to report that I'm doing quite well these days and accident and incident free!

So there you have it, a couple of tid bits of information that perhaps you didn't know about me. What about you guys? Anyone else wish to post a comment on themselves in the same fashion?