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Mathematics
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Electronics design
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Rifle shooting
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Drinking large quantities of beer in one sitting
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The ability to speak articulately when I really don’t know what the hell I’m talking about
Ha! Ego Boosters Anonymous. Cool.
I’m really good at:[ul][li]Alpine skiing. It’s the only sport I have a little talent for. I’ve been doing it for about 15 years, and for a tourist (no mountains in the Netherlands), I’m very good.[/li][li]Driving. Excellent driver, all around. Minor flaw: tendency to speed. Really, really speed. I can park my car in a space 20 cm. longer than the vehicle itself, with ease, and without hitting bumpers. Most of the time. ;)[/li]Striving to be a good bike rider too, but so far, I have too little experience (and one minor crash!).
[li]I’m a more than decent public speaker.[/li][li]I have a talent for languages. My English is near fluent, and my French and German aren’t half bad either.[/li][li]Rock Trivia. Second only to Odieman, in this regard. ;)[/li]I know slightly more about most things than most people around me. I guess that makes me a great generalist.[/ul]
I’m good at strange/geeky stuff:
I am great at finding the queen bee on a frame of workers and drones
I can easily tell the gender of a Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly)
I can imitate the voices of cats, chickens, and llamas pretty well
I can speak Spanish well when I get into the right mood
With enough time (and bribery), I can get even the most stubborn llama to get through a practice obstacle course [sub]Shows are a different story, though. Time to go post in the “things I suck at” thread…[/sub]
Good, my dear, is an understatement!!
My particular talents lie in…
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Driving. Much like Coldie, I have a tendency to drive a WEE bit too fast, but I’ve avoided many an accident by virtue of quick reflexes and paying attention to other drivers.
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Always being on time. I have the knack of walking in at the exact moment I need to be somewhere – not early, not late, just right on time. It’s eerie; I can TRY and be late, and still arrive on time.
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Listening. I’ve become my friends’ counselor and crying shoulder by virtue of listening rather than talking, and asking good questions and giving heartfelt guidance.
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Trivial Pursuit. I will bury almost anyone at Trivial Pursuit, as I have way too much useless knowledge cluttering up my brain. I can’t remember what my boss told me to take care of this morning, but by God I can recall useless trivia.
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Deftness at the oddest times. I’m usually a total klutz, except when I’m startled (for example, when someone knocks something off a shelf). At those times, my reflexes are uncanny.
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Diplomacy. I’ve learned the knack of getting along with pretty much anyone and making them feel like they got the best end of the deal. Friends tell me I should have gone into sales… not sure whether that’s a compliment or an insult.
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Creative insults. Nothing foul or obscene, just good at coming up with zingers that really suit people.
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Looking busy. My bosses actually think I WORK most of the time… the fools!
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Video games. Can pick up most any video game and play it well right off the bat. Comes from way too many quarters spent in way too many arcades as a kid. (Applies only to twitch, fighting or racing games… I suck hearty at RTS’s. No sense of strategy, I guess.)
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Tutoring others. Probably because I really enjoy teaching others, and anytime I teach someone something it increases my own knowledge about that same skill. (The only way I really understood thermodynamics as an undergrad was tutoring other people in my class.)
That’s about all I can come up with… more later if I get inspired.
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Sketch out an skewed-perspective, orthagonal projection of a future project’s machinery and room layout off the top of my head in 3-5 minutes - watch the contractor’s jaw sag
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Baking - sourdough bread, chocolate chip cookies, pancakes and the best damn baked potatoes I’ve ever had
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Hi, Opal!
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Geometric proofs - when I learned them in 6th grade I was quicker solver them in a week than my father (who just happened to be a math teacher with 29 years experience, back then)
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Speedread - freshman year (high school) 4800 wpm. It is expensive to keep myself in books, however.
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Psychick - esp. great at detection of speedtraps five minutes before encoutering on roads, by way of distinct auditory hallucinations of police sirens coming from directly behind my vehicle (Sure is odd, though).
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Why, yes, I drive a standard transmission. I wouldn’t have it any other way. And yes, I am good at it.
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Handy with tools - from crochet hooks to torque wrenches, from toilet plungers to radial arm saws, if it is a tool, I can not only use it, I’m not even clumsy with the unfamilar ones. This does tend to frustrate the guys who have to ask me for help, though…
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Machinery empath - I can make it work by just standing next to it. Really. If I move off, it will break down again, right on cue.
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Falling down - no broken bones in thirty plus years, and I’m really good at terrible-looking slapstick falls, like sliding down the edges of stairs and landing perfectly okay (once while holding two heavy suitcases, one each hand, which STARTLED the crowd around the bus at the airport!) or when I went into a concrete block wall horizontally at some 5 foot elevation, full speed on skates, and just rolled down it and got back up. Love to see the expressions around me when I do, though…
1outstanding at detecting other people’s flaws
2one of the world’s top scoring flight simulator pilots
3terrific at deigning office forms
4intuitive ability to operate, though not write, almost any software
5thinking up exceptions to rules
6trivia whiz
7sarcasm
that’ll do for now…
Ziactrice, you unalloyed genius!
Those are awesome skills – Are you bad at anything?
If you mean ‘less than proficient’, oh, yes, lots of things.
If you mean ‘unbelievably incapable’, only one. I cannot, no matter how I try, keep time zones (other than the one my watch says) straight. I’m time-dxylexic, I guess. My friends, thankfully, all know and work around my seeming complete inability (I can only know when not to call folks if I have my Visor handy; it has a readout saying what time it is THERE).
But isn’t this on a different thread? Not that I plan to write a list on that side, I still feel too good from this one to do something that depressing this near the dreaded Holiday Season.
Z
The few things I’m really, really good at aren’t exactly gonzo, earth-shaking stuff but here goes:
[ul]
- crossword puzzles
- swimming; not necessarily for speed but I’m totally at home in the water. (Kurt Vonnegut: “In the water, I’m graceful.”)
- weird squiggles and doots of knowledge, most of 'em totally inane.
- I’m an extremely safe, courteous, “non-hormonal” driver
- occassional leap-of-logic connections between apparently unconnected things. This isn’t reliable but when it works, it sings.
[/ul]
Veb
i can pretend to know about stuff i dont know about.
I can carry on a conversation for hours about wrestling.
I know lots about wrestling
i know lots of wrestling moves.
i really like wrestling.