Fun Facts

I'd never come across the concept of "fun facts" before working in Silicon Valley. Here, though, they seem to be the standard way of introducing people. Mainly they come in triples, for example "Everybody, meet Bob. Bob climbed Mount Tahoma last year. Before that he lived for ten years in a shack in North Dakota. He knits his own swimwear".

My last two employers have asked me for fun facts about myself so that they could introduce me, and here comes my new employer asking for the same (I start there on Monday).

So while I think about it here are three fun facts about me:

1. I first made money from computers when I was 13, earning £10 for a 6502 assembly language program published in Acorn User magazine in the UK;
2. my wife Wendy and I are expecting our first child in July and are very excited; and
3. I'm too old for a fixie but I ride one anyway.

Twitter also asked me to supply a photo of myself. I sent this one which Wendy took on Spring Break last year in Lone Pine, CA:

Talking to Wendy this evening about fun facts, she introduced me to a variant "two truths and a lie" which I like much better. For completeness, here are two truths and a lie about me:

1. I went to ballet class as a kid;
2. I played the piccolo in the school orchestra; and
3. I was a competitive teenage ping-pong player.

Spot the lie.