--- title: "Five things you didn't know about me" url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2007/1/6/five-things-you-didnt-know-about-me.md" canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2007/1/6/five-things-you-didnt-know-about-me.html" published: "2007-01-06T17:01:37" updated: "2007-01-06T17:01:37" tags: ["Off Topic"] author: "Roy Osherove" description: "I've been tagged , so I'll use this as a good chance to talk about my favorite subject - me! Five things you didn't know about me: 1. I used to be a wave surfer between the ages of 12-18, with long hair that was…" usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)." license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" --- # Five things you didn't know about me By Roy Osherove January 6, 2007 In [Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic) **Historical article** · Originally published January 6, 2007; technical details may be outdated. I've been [tagged](http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma/archive/2007/01/02/i-m-tagged-and-happy-newyear.aspx), so I'll use this as a good chance to talk about my favorite subject - me! Five things you didn't know about me: 1\. I used to be a wave surfer between the ages of 12-18, with long hair that was brightened by the sun (4-8 hours a day at sea in summers!), thin (seriously!), and used to smoke. Of course, I've given wave surfing up for web surfing and smoking for eating, which made giving up "thin" rather easy.. 2\. at 21, when I was done with military duty, I did many odd jobs - security officer at the Crown Plaza Hotel, Electrics sales person, computer shop sales, then manager, then head of customer care, even car-wash boy at some point in time. there were a couple of months I worked as an insurance claim investigator (what  a terrible job!), and another where I was selling teen magazines in schools. I'd like to think all these jobs gave me a nice perspective on things I do today, and for life experience in general. 3\. Although my English may sound native, I've never spent more than a few weeks in English speaking countries (2 months at Norway don't count either). All my English speaking skills come from watching huge amounts of TV since I was a child. I'm quite a movie and video buff too, in fact. 4\. I love a good horror movie, especially the mindless kind (as in "re-animator", "hell raiser" etc.. 5\. I started writing this blog when I was at a job that I really hated. You should give it a try! Tag, You're it: [Jamie Cansdale](http://weblogs.asp.net/nunitaddin), [Mike Gunderloy](http://www.larkware.com/), [Hanselman](http://www.hanselman.com/blog/default.aspx), [Yosi Taguri](http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/yosit/)! ## More in Off Topic [All posts in Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic) - Mar 2, 2007 ### [Building a home media center - Here's my parts list](https://osherove.com/blog/2007/3/2/building-a-home-media-center-heres-my-parts-list.html) - Feb 25, 2007 ### [Why the Wii is selling like hotcakes](https://osherove.com/blog/2007/2/25/why-the-wii-is-selling-like-hotcakes.html) - Dec 25, 2006 ### [Good Experience: Cool Online Games](https://osherove.com/blog/2006/12/25/good-experience-cool-online-games.html) - Dec 24, 2006 ### [Rest in peace, Doug Reilly](https://osherove.com/blog/2006/12/24/rest-in-peace-doug-reilly.html) --- ## About the author **Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery. ### Sites - [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership. - [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts. - [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin. - [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model. - [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps. - [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes). ### Social - X: https://x.com/royosherove - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/ ### Contact - Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7 ### License Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/