So I got tagged, by my so-called “friend” Jon Arild. Supposedly I’d give you 5 things you didn’t know about me. I would rather give 5 things you DID know about me, but I’ll play along.

  1. The reason for the name Brad Storm: During grad school at Cal Poly I kind of made the local Starbucks my second home (in fact, Starbucks is credited in my thesis acknowledgement page for this!). However, my name was a problem: writing Bård Strøm, with Norwegian letters, weren’t easy to understand. So I had to write Bard Strom. Every American reading this name would automatically go “Brad Storm”, simply switching the two middle letters in each name. Hence, after a few “Whats your name? Bard Strom” questions that led to “Coffee for Braaad!” at Starbucks, I told this story to my professor. He thought it to be a good story. In fact, he liked the name Brad Storm so well that he gave me an extra 10% score on my following assignment, signed with the name Brad Storm.
  2. When I was 16, I kind of had a plan for my life: I wanted to be fighter pilot. Two very good friends mine had the same plan (someone would use the word dream, but for us these were plans). So we became good friends, keeping our common plan alive, although we knew that the chances were slim. We all applied to flight school when we were old enough, all of us got accepted to the first round of tests. When all tests were completed, I was applying for schools while my two friends are now flying F-16 and Bell UH-1 helicopter.
  3. At the same age, 16, there were two things I definitely would not do: 1) get involved in politics, 2) Attend college and get another office job. By the age of 19 I was the president for the local youth labor party. By the age of 23 I had completed my masters degree in Computer science.
  4. I might have been the first Norwegian to have coached American Football at college level in the states, and still maintained my nationality and residence in Norway. I was lucky to work with coach Rich Ellerson and his great staff with the Cal Poly Mustangs. My responsibility was with the runningbacks, a great bunch of players with a good attitute. We were 6-5 that season (first winning season in five years).
  5. I have a mental hindrance from eating tomatoes. While tomato products are ok, I cannot eat an ordinary tomato.

I dont have any fellow bloggers that haven’t already been tagged so this branch seems to die with me :)