Matt Bailey tagged me over the weekend (here’s Matt’s response to being tagged), along with a not so subtle hint that I should get off my butt and do more posting. Thanks Matt. Jonathon Mendez gave me a similar message at SES in Chicago.

Here’s how the game seems to work. You tag 5 bloggers and they all have to share 5 things that people don’t know about them. I’m not really that deep, so I don’t know if there are any secrets hidden down there..but I’ll do my best.

1. I worked as a radio copywriter right out of college, doing stints at stations in Edmonton, Alberta, Regina, Saskatchewan, Fort McMurray, Alberta and Kelowna, BC. Yes, it was the not so famous tour of the lesser known hot spots in Western Canada. Here are the notable memories from each location. Edmonton is notable (or notorious?) primarily for its mall which is still the largest one in the world. If you had spent a winter in Edmonton, you’d understand the logic. My memories, however, are more around seeing the Oilers play through the seasons of 80 – 83, while they had Gretzky, Kurri, Messier, Coffey, Glenn Anderson and Andy Moog. It was perhaps the best team to ever hit the ice, and I wasn’t even a big hockey fan. I moved to Regina in the winter for my first real job in radio, and thought if I could hang on til summer, it would get better. I was wrong. We had a plague of grasshoppers that literally covered the streets and sidewalks. Fort McMurray, in northern Alberta, is the single largest known deposit of oil in the world. This one deposit has more oil than Saudi Arabia. So you’d better be nice to us Canadians! And finally, Kelowna, my current home. It’s a beautiful place, which could be why I’ve been here almost 20 years now.

2. I won the Canadian Radio Industry’s Equivalent of a Clio, a Crystal, back in 1991, for a commercial I wrote. It had no sound effects, other than a crinkled chip bag, and I did one of the voices. You have to understand that I was almost never allowed to do voice over work for any station and if you’ve heard me speak, you’ll probably understand why. I think we can agree that it’s usually what I talk about, not the quality of my voice, that lands me any speaking gigs that come my way. James Earl Jones has nothing to worry about.

3. I have no university degree. I do have a diploma in Radio and Television Arts from the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, but there are no letters after my name. I’m one of the very few members of the Enquiro team without a degree. Somewhat ironic, because I know that there’s at least one academic paper that I’ve co-authored now.

4. I was raised in possibly the least liberal town in Canada. Sundre, where I grew up, is in the heart of rural, bible belt Alberta. And Alberta, for those who know the Canadian political landscape, is hardly a hot bed of liberal ideology. This is farming, ranching, oil country. Just to mix things up a bit, it was originally settled by Norwegians, so to put it in US analogous terms, if you took Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon and moved it to Texas by way of Montana, you’d probably have Sundre.

5. You probably wouldn’t guess it to look at me (although I have lost 50 pounds in the last year..another little known fact), but I love road biking. I tend to head off for solo rides, I’m not really into racing or riding with groups. I’m trying to recruit someone interested in doing a 3 or 4 day road trip in the next year or two. Typically an average ride for me is 60 to 100 K’s (about 40 to 60 miles). Next year my goal is to do a one day 100 mile ride.

That’s it. Now..who do I tag? Well, it may be a easy way out, but we have 5 bloggers right here in Enquiro, so I think I’ll tag Manoj Jasra, Marina Garrison, Cory Bates, Jody Nimetz and Rick Tobin.