‘Biggest brown noser’: 6 awesome facts about Paul Ryan

Over the coming weeks Mitt Romney's vice presidential pick, Paul Ryan, will without a doubt be the center of media scrutiny. Every inch of this man's political career will be picked apart and put back together again.

But before all that, GlobalPost wanted to find out who Ryan is, as a man. Here are six awesome facts about Ryan. It will likely be hard to choose, but try to let us know your favorite in the comments section below.

1. He was voted "biggest brown noser" by his high school classmates. 

Photo via Twitter

While he may have been a brown noser, Ryan seemingly wasn't an unpopular guy. Along with being named a brown noser, he was also voted prom king, voted "most likely to succeed," participated in the Model UN program, ran track for two years and played varsity soccer as a Craig Cougar, and played basketball in a Catholic league, according to the LA Times. 

2. He's got killer biceps.

If there is one thing to be said for Ryan it is that he is an athlete.

According to the Daily Beast, The congressman from Wisconsin has been an avid follower of the P90X workout system for about four years, and he frequently leads workouts with other members of Congress. While there are no photos of a shirtless Ryan on the Internet yet for proof (believe me, I looked), the congressman's cohort Anthony Weiner is living proof of the workout system's effect on the political body.

Tony Horton, inventor of the P90X system, said that the former Democratic representative Weiner used the P90X plan. The Daily Beast noted, "anyone who saw the accidental Twitter pictures that were his political downfall has seen the evidence firsthand."

3. He loves a good wiener.

Ryan is no stranger to hard work. One of his many odd jobs was as a driver for the Oscar Mayer wiener mobile. He told CNN he has fond memories of that summer.

"I actually sold Oscar Mayer products to Northern Minnesota. And meat managers in Northern Minnesota are up really early in the morning. And then they kick off at about 3 o'clock to go fishing. So you got to be in the stores from about 4 in the morning till about 3 in the afternoon and then, like those guys, I would just go out fishing mostly for walleye in Northern Minnesota, which was a great summer. A good job," Ryan said. 

4. Catfish beware, Ryan is a noodler.

Ryan is an avid hunter and noodler. He told The New York Times, “We walk around the banks looking for holes and you get your hand inside the fish and they kind of — they come up on your hand. And then you just squeeze where ever you are on that fish and pull it out. I know it sounds a little crazy, but it’s really exhilarating.”

For those of you not from the Midwest or the South, here is a little explainer on noodling via CBS.

5. Ryan's got an eclectic taste in music. 

According to the Daily Caller, Ryan is just as likely to have Led Zeppelin as Beethoven on his iPod playlist. 

6. He is a big fan of Ayn Rand. 

In a New Yorker profile, Ryan called Rand a key inspiration in his life. 

Salon.com noted Rand's books as, "a big driver in the long-term right-wing campaign to delude millions of people into believing that there’s no such thing as society — that everyone must look out only for themselves."

Ryan told the Atlas Society, a group of Rand devotees, in a 2005 speech, "I grew up on Ayn Rand. That's what I tell people … you know, everybody does their soul-searching, and trying to find out who they are and what they believe, and you learn about yourself … I grew up reading Ayn Rand, and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are, and what my beliefs are."

Ryan has credited Rand as to why he got into public service.