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Long-Term Memory, Tats & Foxy Shazam...

Wednesday, 31 October 2012 02:30

(WARNING: This post contains copious amounts of pure gibberish.)

Going "Off Course" - Do you remember who sat next to you in third grade?

Lakeville triathlete Bill Benning does.

Wait! Bill doesn't know who sat next to YOU back then; but he clearly recalls who HE sat next to. He'd have to be clairvoyant to know who you sat next to.

We digress.

Chances are good that if you are more than two decades old, you don't remember stuff like your grade school seating assignments. But Bill does. That's because he suffers from "LTM." ...

Long-Term Memory (See confusing chart above).

Long-term memory is like Short-Term Memory, only longer. Some people, but not many, have both LTM and STM. Bill isn't one of them. He can't, for instance, recall which Applebee's he ate at last Friday. It was either the one on Kenrick in Lakeville, or the one on Cedar Avenue in Apple Valley. Wait! It may have been the one at Burnsville Center. Right now he's not sure, BUT in a few years it will all come back to him with crystalline clarity. That's when his LTM will kick in. We only hope that whoever he shares this non-momentous bygone information with in the future will either care, or at least pretend to do so by smiling politely and not admitting that their minds are currently occupied with various short-term recollections.

What else have we learned about Bill, who is a tall, muscular, handsome guy with a a lovely wife and two above-average-in-every-way daughters and a fondness for "meaningful" tattoos and quasi-lewd tunes, like "I Like It" by Foxy Shazam (LINK)? Well, he has a very nice house (photo below) that he renovated last May, though probably doesn't remember doing so yet. He also swims outdoors in the wintertime (photo below), is a part-time neat freak and prefers take-and-bake pizza to the the delivery kind.

Bill's a fairly clear-headed guy, that STM-deficit thing notwithstanding, except that he thinks that Rooney Mara's portrayal of the wonderfully enigmatic "Lisbeth Salander" in Steig Larssen's brilliant "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" was superior to Noomi Rapace's Salander in the original Swedish version of the movie. Sure, Mara was great and received an Oscar nomination and had cooler hair (photo above L), but Rapace (photo below L)......

Once again, we digress.

We hope that in a few years when Bill recalls having been featured in an "Off Course" post, that he will remember having chuckled at the playful, affectionate ribbing he endured. Thanks for letting us do this to you, Bill.

BACKGROUND:

Name- Bill Benning

Age-50

Where you live now- Lakeville, MN

Where were you born- Mankato, MN

Education? Where?-Evelyn Goodwin's School for Wayward Triathletes

Degrees?- PHD in Street Smarts

Occupation- Sr. Acct. Exec.-FirstData Commercial Services

Former Occupations- Blackjack Dealer at Mystic Lake (For fun!)

Family? Wife? Husband? Kids?- Wife-Kelly, married 17 years. Daughters, Kersten-14 and Sydney-12

Pets? Names?-Too busy for animals.

Tattoos- Ink with a meaning! Double B