Cel had me do this post, from her blog, which seems to have disappeared.

10 years ago today: I was nine, which was between the third and fourth grades. I don’t remember the exact day, but I was probably pretty excited to be moving up to the other half of the school. (Grades K-3 are at one end, 4-6 at the other.)

5 years ago today: Preparing to start high school. I don’t remember all that well, but I likely was doing some yard work, and some sort of craft–possibly a latch hook of some sort. Those are the main things I did over the summer. Also, quite a bit of reading.

1 year ago today: According to my calendar, which I started keeping on the palm Pilot I got for Christmas 2003, I worked from 9-6. Chances are, that was the only thing I did that day.

Yesterday: Got a haircut at 9 in the morning, worked from 5-10. Spent the better part of the day working in my room, moving stuff from one place to another, and resolving a situation where I was charged twice for my website. I have my site hosted on Honest Networks, which is a small company. They are new to the paid hosting game, and they have a few glitches now and again. But when something happens, you let them know, and by gosh, there’s someone working on it that same day. It turns out that they just made a mistake in how they set up my account in the billing program.

Tomorrow: Work around the house in the morning. Work 1-10. Not much else.
[Edited 7/30 because I had in my mind that it was Saturday when I posted this. It actaully was Friday.]

5 snacks I enjoy: M&Ms, Potato chips (Ruffles are better than Lays), Fast Break candy bars, peanuts, and Wheat Thins (some varieties).

5 bands that I know the lyrics to most of their songs: Tim McGraw, Brooks & Dunn, most country acts that were popular 3 years ago.

5 things I would do with $100,000,000: Definitely buy a house, and pay off my schooling, probably a decent car, donate some to charity, and probably set up some sort of endowment for scholarships.

5 locations I’d like to run away to: You know, I really don’t want to run anywhere, but I ‘ll try to answer the question anyway. New England, Washington DC (for a long while, but not permanently), Britain, France, and New Zealand.

5 bad habits I have: Getting flustered when too much happens at once, procrastinating, putting projects aside when I don’t want to deal with them anymore (kinda goes in with procrastination, but is for the longer term), thinking that I’m a computer genius and everyone else is an idiot, eating too many snacks while at work (hey, it’s a grocery store, alright.)

5 things I like doing: Reading, working on coding something for myself, Internet stuff (usually), and lots of other stuff. (Isn’t it sad that I can only think of two things I like to do?)

5 things I would never wear: One of those insulting type shirts (Make 7 up yours), a professional football player’s jersey, women’s clothing, a hot pink shirt (without a good reason), a pair of those multi-colored socks with sleeves for each toe.

5 TV shows I like: (can i make that like(d)?) Brat Camp, 8 Simple Rules, Jeopardy, an old game show called Distraction seen in re-runs, and Millionaire before Regis left.

5 movies I like: Somewhat hindered by the number of movies I haven’t seen, I like these ones: National Treasure, Anchorman, The Lord of the Rings series, Oceans Eleven and Twelve, to list recent ones.

5 famous people I’d like to meet: I don’t think that there are that many. We’ll say Pope Benedict,

5 biggest joys of the moment: Reading a good book (I like Tom Clancy, but I just finished his most recent one), getting comments on my blog (I’m not trying to provoke any comments here, honest!), listening to some music with a decent beat and tune, finishing a project, taking a great photo.

5 favorite toys: My computer, my camera, and not that many other things.

5 people to tag: Umm, you mean people that read my blog and haven’t already done this? Uh, I , uh, pick…you.

[2008 Update: While th is post accurately documents how messy I was at the time, I would like to note that in the intervening years, I have gotten a fair bit cleaner. Not that I’m clutter free by any means, but this post is no longer representative of my living quarters]

I posted a request for pictures over a week ago, and received several requests from Celtic. At long last, here they are.

1 – your bedroom. What’s the real Nathan like?

When taking these pictures, I made no attempt to clean my room, or anything, so this is the real Nathan, as messy as I can sometimes be.

The first thing you see when you walk into my bedroom. At the far right, you can see my dresser, which used to be my grandpa’s. I have the same jean quilt bedspread, and you can see where all the stuff accumulates at the end of the bed. Behind that is the closet, again, quite messy. The models on the shelf are from way back, when I had an interest in them, but that faded after a few years. (I never painted any of them, just assembled them, and as soon as we finally got paint so I could do the next model properly, I got tired of them. The red and black rocket was made and launched once in middle school Tech Ed, and has never been launched since.

This is my desk, again quite messy. I stole the monitor from the old family computer, which we didn’t use anymore, and experimented with a two monitor setup. It’s interesting, but not really all that great, at least for me. To the left of the desk, I have a TV tray set up so that I have additional desk space, something that is always at a premium when you organize things the way I do. 🙂 To the left, under the window, is my bookcases, with my printer and a lava lamp on top. This is almost all of my books, but most of the shelves are stacked two deep.

This is the area behind my door, where my bulletin board is. I never got in the habit of using it for temporary things,but have several newspaper clippings tacked to the board, and lots more under my desk, in a tupperware tray/container. Tools also belong behind the door, and you can see the clothes that I have hanging on the wall.

2 – the view out your bedroom window.

My window looks out into the back yard, which is to the South. The basement is too low to see the river, but you can see the mountains on the other side, which is in Oregon. There’s a hanging fuschia just outside my window, too. In the second picture, you can see the swingset (now a bit rickety) and shed, both off to the right. The garden is just over the crest of the hill over on the left half of the picture.

3 – your favourite thing

This one is harder than it looks. I’m tempted to claim my laptop, or a book, but I’m not sure, and I’m not sure that I like either of those answers, either. So for now, I’ll post this picture.

4 – any pets?

Well, once upon a time, at the elementary school carnival, I won a certificate for three free goldfish, as did my sister. So we went to the pet store, and picked one up. As goldfish are prone to do, especially ones that live in tiny bowls, they died. So we buried them. They had names, but I don’t remember them. This is the approximate location of their grave.

5 – tit for tat — YOUR bathroom reading material stash 😛

This is the reading stash in the downstairs bathroom. It’s a religious magazine. Upstairs, it tends to be an old issue of Good Housekeeping, or some sort of women’s magazine, which occasionally contain articles of interest to me. I’m amazed at how many covers will have a story like “Lose Weight–The Easy Way”, and then the cover picture is of a chocolate cake, with the caption “18 Delicious Deserts, Inside!” I just don’t get that.