100 things 'bout Michael

It's way too much information 'bout me . . .

1. I've had moderate to severe asthma since childhood.
2. I love pussy, but I am very much allergic to cats.
3. I'm a dog person, not a cat person.
4. I have no children.
5. I currently spend 30 hours a week volunteering.
6. I used to volunteer to coach 5th and 6th grade flag football.
7. The football teams I coached never finished lower than 2nd in our league.
8. One of the boys I coached in football went on to have a fair career in the NFL.
9. Baseball was my favorite sport as I was growing up, both as a spectator and to play.
10. I didn't hit my first homerun in an official little league game until I was 13 years old.
11. My first little league homerun was a walk-off grand slam in a sudden death tournament, I was carried off the field on my teammates shoulders.
12. I was once "scouted" at age 15-16 by the Cincinnati Reds and St. Louis Cardinals.
13. My favorite baseball team is the Minnesota Twins.  The St Louis Cardinals and Cincinnati Reds are also teams I generally cheer for.
14. My favorite football team is the Minnesota Vikings.
15. My favorite basketball team is the Chicago Bulls.
16. I was once a member of Mensa.
17. I quit Mensa after a single year because playing bondage games with my first wife was a far better way to spend Saturday nights than hanging out with a bunch of certified (and certifiable) geniuses.
18. I was an only child.  I suppose I still am . . . 
19. Serafina and I met on a message board about medicinal herbs.
20. Serafina is my 3rd (and final) wife.  The first was a youthful mistake, the second a devious plot, and the third time is the charm!
21. Serafina is my best friend, in addition to being my slave/wife.
22. I once spent college student loan money on a pair of ADS Studio Monitor Speakers.
23. I never graduated from college.
24. The ADS Studio Monitor Speakers are still (30 years later) the best home speakers I've ever heard.
25. My favorite clothing is all 100% organic cotton.
26. My favorite flavor of ice cream is "Chocolate Chocolate-Chip" by Haagen-Dazs®.
27. I love music of many kinds: rock, jazz, folk, blues, goth, punk, classical, and much more . . . 
28. I still have several hundred LP records in addition to my CD collection.
29. My favorite band is Dead Can Dance.  
30. Other musical favorites include: Pink Floyd, Bauhaus, Peter Gabriel, the Who, Talking Heads, The Cure, Miles Davis, Traffic, The Band, Bob Marley & Bob Dylan.
31. Best music from my collection you've probably never heard: Brian Eno - Another Green World
32. My favorite album is Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.
33. Favorite "new" musical artist for 2012 - John Fullbright.
34. I was a drummer in our High School Band, when they didn't have me playing the piano.
35. Although I was an accomplished pianist who was trained to sight read classical music, I haven't played a piano (or keyboard) in 30 years.
36. I'm a sex abuse survivor, the abuser was my piano teacher.
37. Outside of Serafina, I usually prefer to be alone, rather than in the company of friends, relatives, etc.
38. My favorite "place" in the world are the "Canyons of the Colorado River" from just outside Grand Junction, Colorado up to the slackwater of Lake Mead (more aptly called Lake Merde) ignoring the retched Lake Powell (aka Lake Foul).
39. My favorite author is Ed Abbey.
40. I once embraced the Earth First! philosophy of radical environmentalism in defense of our planet.
41. As a very young child I used to relish the act of pulling surveyors stakes.  This isn't even a childhood memory, I was too young to remember, it's a story from my parents.
42. Back in the 1990's, I married my ex in Moab, Utah, while vacationing at Arches and Canyonlands National Parks.
43. I lived in Grand Canyon National Park for a year in the 1980's.
44. I vacationed at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve (it was a National Monument at the time) for an entire month in the 1990's.
45. I was an avid backpacker in my teens and twenties.
46. I backpacked through 60 miles of wilderness going from end-to-end on Isle Royale National Park in Lake Superior.
47. In my youth I also was an avid spelunker, in my late 20's I probably spent a day a week in caves. 
48. I smoked tobacco for 15 years, but quit forever in 2000.
49. I quit smoking because I was diagnosed with Emphysema in one lobe of my lungs.
50. My doctor of 15 years often forgets I have lung disease because my lungs sound so good today.
51. I threw up (severe vomiting episodes - at times almost cartoon like projectile style retching) nearly every day for more than 5 years, enduring endless endoscopy and other procedures, including having my gallbladder removed.  
52. My reoccurring vomiting episodes were caused by stress, and the episodes almost entirely ended when Blissful Torment (my ex-wife) left my life.
53. My favorite color is black.
54. I'm an avid reader.  Before Kindle came into my life, I added a large bookshelf full of new books every other year.  
55. The vast majority of the books on my Kindle are about sexuality.
56. The majority of books in my physical book collection are scholarly studies on the Second World War.
57. Books about baseball history are the second most common subject in my library.
58. If I'm not reading about World War II or baseball, I'm studying natural history, geology, agronomy, or similar environmental sciences.
59. Although I have more than an entire bookshelf of books about kink, sexuality, and BDSM; those subjects all together are only in 4th place among topics found in my personal library.
60. I'll never forget our nation's bicentennial, 1976 was the year I lost my virginity.  
61. I was 13 years old when I lost my virginity.
62. Three different women have given me the gift of being their first real lover.  
63. I'll never forget hearing over the radio that John Lennon had been shot and died, it was my then girlfriend's first time having sex, and she'd asked me to tie her up for the experience! I was 17.
64. I love floggers best of all my kinky toys.  Serafina and I counted the floggers on display in our playroom, the tally was 17.  There are a couple of others tucked away in a travel case, and I just commissioned three more.
65. My favorite flogger maker is Snake Pit Leather Works, who produce by far the best quality floggers I've ever seen or used.
66. For 15 years my ex-wife and I lived in a poly-amorous relationship where we were involved with another woman (or two) at all times.
67. The craziest place I've ever had sex was at an interstate highway rest area during the middle of the day with a group of nuns picnicking 20 or 30 yards away. 
68. I worked for a decade as a community organizer.
69. I spent a year training under a world famous chef at a 4-star restaurant, and another 5 years cooking for a living.
70. I spent 15 years in government service as a politician's Chief of Staff.
71. As a youth, I worked as an umpire and referee, de-tasseling corn, and as a cemetery groundskeeper.
72. My primary sexual interests revolve around BDSM.  It's been like that since the dawn of my own sexuality.
73. I still get a thrill every time Serafina calls me Master, it's like hearing music. (Yes, I know how narcissistic that sounds.)
74. Obviously, my BDSM orientation is Dominant/Master.
75. I'm a bit of a sexual sadist who enjoys gently pushing limits.
76. When I was younger I did occasionally "switch" and play submissive for my ex Blissful Torment, and a couple of her different girlfriends, including Cherub who has made a couple of guest posts here.
77. I have no desire to have sex with men, but consider myself "gender-queer" because I can potentially dominate a person of either sex.
78. My ex (Blissful Torment) and I once had a live-in "houseboy" for something like 6 months.
79. My collection of adult and BDSM toys more than fills two rolling toy trunks from For Your Nymphomation.
80. I drive a Toyota 4x4 pickup truck.
81. I consider myself to be a Christian Buddhist, but am more spiritual than religious.
82. I was an atheist throughout most of my teens and twenties.
83. I attended an exclusive private college prep school during junior high and high school.
84. My favorite movie is Apocalypse Now.
85. I was kicked out of my parents house at age 17, given 5 minutes to pack, and told to make an appointment to come back and get what things couldn't be packed in 5 minutes.
86. I was no longer living with my parents when I graduated from High School, but Mom showed up at my graduation, took my diploma to "look at", and then left with it.
87. For a decade I was a caregiver for my sick Mother.
88. I occasionally battle moderate depression.
89. Mom never forgave me for sneaking my girlfriend in through my bedroom window when I was 17.
90. I never was caught sneaking my girlfriend in through my bedroom window, but had confessed doing so to my parents when I was in my 20's.
91. My favorite vegetable is broccoli.
92. Apples are my favorite fruit.
93. I'm 48 years of age.
94. In all honesty, I never thought I'd live beyond the age of 40.
95. There is a ring in my left nipple.
96. My nipple piercing was done in Canada, the first time I went to visit Serafina.
97. I suffer from degenerative disc disease and osteoarthritis in the lumbar region of my lower back.
98. Chronic back pain has turned me into an insomniac.
99. I still don't know what I want to be when I "grow up" . . . 
100. Samadhi, my chosen name, is a Sanskrit word meaning "sweet transcendental bliss" and/or "a non-dualistic state of consciousness in which the consciousness of the experiencing subject becomes one with the experienced object."