I’ve been tagged by Tamar Weinberg, so here are five things you may probably don’t know about me:

• Technically, I’m Hispanic, although you wouldn’t guess it from looking at me. My father is from Venezuela, my mother from Brooklyn, and I’ve lived in Queens most of my life.
• I used to be on the board of a major New York State advocacy organization. I mostly pushed for more work on consumer protection legislation, but we also dealt with environmental protection and helping the homeless.
• I’ve worked or volunteered on almost every New York election since 1995, including all three Pataki campaigns, a Giuliani campaign and a Bloomberg campaign, and for a few local Democrats. I don’t agree with everything these guys have done, especially Pataki the last few years (in fact, during my time at the advocacy organization, I lobbied against many of Pataki’s policies and helped with protests outside his offices), but I never fought for someone I didn’t support.
• On 9/11, I was in Israel. A few months later, I skipped a bus in Jerusalem to browse around a bookstore, and minutes later a Palestinian terrorist shot up that very bus while I looked at a Lord of the Rings picture book a few hundred feet away. I consider myself very lucky to have avoided that, unlike the people who died or were injured where I could have been sitting. During my honeymoon, I took my wife back to the very spot where I decided to read instead of taking the bus, and maybe saved my life.
• I have a dog named Doggie. Well, technically he isn’t my dog, I stole him. Back in September, his owner, a widow and friend of the family, asked me to watch him for three days so she could visit her kids/grandkids. I wonder when she’ll ask for him back? I’m in no rush for him to leave, since he’s the cutest dog in the world, and has become like a little baby for us newlyweds to take care of.

Bonus: I’m not related to Tamar, despite us sharing the same last names. Tamar did introduce herself a little while back, and it turns out she writes several cool blogs, about photography, technology, search and design and podcasting. My wife is Raquel Weinberg, formerly Heney, and we just celebrated six months of marriage last Thursday.

Now, I have to tag five others: Jason Schramm, Adam Lasnik Amit Agarwal, Miel Van Opstal, Alex Barnett, and TDavid. Lets see what they’ve got.

UPDATE: Here’s Alex’s post. And a bonus seventh fact: My Xbox Live Gamertag is Braverman, named after a mid-90s Superman villain, Kenny Braverman. I’m a Superman nut.

UPDATE 2: Here’re Miel’s 5 things. Looks like he did better in school than I did. I’ve always had an easy time getting good grades, so my time at every school I’ve been to would go like this:

• Start new school
• Get exceptional grades
• Get bored with top grades, seeing no reward and little satisfaction (it came easy, but I’m not the classic overachiever type)
• Slacked off, and found other projects that were more rewarding (like running organizations, journalism, writing and directing plays, computers, creative writing)
• Got kicked out of school, or graduated on pure momentum.

I’m not the student type. I’ve got the brains of an honor roll student, but the wrong type of ambition for academics. I’ve found I need clearer, collaborative goals to succeed, like those working with others, planning or oganizing events or projects. Grades showed no clear payoff for me, beyond the obvious “go-to-school-for-16-to-20-years-and-get-a-higher-pay-grade” payoff.

That’s another bonus factoid. Technically, Miel wrote his the day before I tagged him, but I’m taking credit, damnit!