May 2006 Archives

Questions for Tasha

1. Having earned a doctorate in psychological science, you're very much concerned with the scientific method and empircal data. Given this background with a foundation built upon hard sceince, do you believe in some sort of higher power, regardless of name? Why or why not?


2. What is the single most empowering thing you've ever done?


3. A distant relative has passed away and left their home to you in their will. What does it look like and where is it located?


4. In your grandparents' lifetime they the invention of the production line and television. In your parents' lifetime they saw the moon landing and the creation of computers the size of molecules. What leaps do you imagine or hope to see in your lifetime?


5. You have been chosen to write a letter that will be encoded and beamed out in space in all directions. The letter can say whatever you want and will not be censored in any way. It will be encoded in such a manner that whomever or whatever finds it will be able to decode and understand the message. What do you say?

Questions for Marcia

1. In Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead he introduces the concept of an objective individual that research the life of a recently deceased person and gives a speech in an attempt to speak for them, describing the deceased's life as he or she lived it. Should your family choose to have a Speaker at your funeral, what do you think the overall tone of their speech would be?


2. You are given the choice of any super power you can conceive of. What do you choose and why? What are the drawbacks of having this power?


3. You have written the Great American Novel which was received with widespread critical acclaim. What's next?


4. How do you think your life might have been different if you were male?


5. What is your greatest acheivement? How do you hope to surpass it?

Questions for Leona

1. If you could bury a time capsule of any size, what would you put into it?


2. Name the three most influential people in your life and why. However, rather than role models, name three people whose actions were an example of how not to live your life.


3. If you could deliver an edict for all of humanity to follow, under penalty of death, what would it be? Know that if smoeone does not follow it to the letter, they will die. There is no room for interpretation and the edict is defined exactly as you define it.


4. Science has perfected instant travel to anywhere in the universe without fail. Assuming you had a special suit that would allow you to live comfortably in any environment, where would you go? Why?


5. In the movie of your life, who would you want to play you? You may chose different actresses to portray you at different ages if you wish.

1. It's your twentieth wedding anniversary. You decide to make a retrospective video montage for your wife to celebrate your time together. Tell me the five most memorable moments in the video.

The first thing that comes to mind is the wedding "behind the scenes" stuff. There's always footage of the bride, groom, and others rushing around pinning things and fixing hair and doing whippets. It's all the excitement and rush of it and, in the midst of it all, I'd love to know what she was doing when I was worried about tripping over myself.

Second is children, should that be an option. Not necessarily the birth as that's kinda gross (though I'm sure I'll feel different about it if and when the time comes) so much as key events in the life. First birthday(s), graduation(s) from school, and finally moving out of the house. Something along those lines.

Third is likely still photos. Not from an event in particular so much as I like what she or the kids doing or how she or the kids look in the picture. Maybe a picture of a sunset from a vacation. Maybe a picture mostly of someone's thumb from a BBQ that we thought would turn out really well, but ended up being, as I said, of someone's finger.

Fourth would be videos/pictures from that one great vacation we took once and tried to replicate in every vacation since. There would always be something magic about it, even in decades old pictures and movies.

Fifth would likely be a still of the words "And all that's yet to be..." or some such similar phrase. Memorable because it's important to me to realize that it's not over yet and there are plenty more adventures to be had.

I would hope she would agree on 3 or more of these. Remind me to show this to my wife someday. We'll have a good laugh, I'm sure.

2. What is your plan for overcoming your greatest fear?

Slowly sorting out the remaining issues in my life that prevent me from focusing on overcoming that fear. This does not mean completely and utterly resolving all outstanding issues so much as making progress on the most important ones, sorting them out so I at least know what they are, and accepting them. I find that of all the things that hold me back from doing anything, 90% of the pressure comes from myself.

Maybe I need to work on being okay with knowing less about a situation than I'd like to and maybe I just need to be okay with the fact that facing and overcoming your biggest fear takes a significant amount of time and can't be done overnight.

3. What, other than ninjas, scrubs or boobs makes you feel smart? But seriously, what in your life do you look at with pride and confidence?

Boobs don't make me feel smart. Actually, they cause me to act the exact opposite of smart. Like, unsmart or smartless. See? Just thinking of them affects me.

This was probably the hardest question for me to answer. With all the others I at least had some inkling of how to answer them, but this one truly stumped me. I had a tendency (well, more like a personality trait) of giving myself less credit than is due. Which leads me to the first thing I am proud of: myself.

Really taking a moment to reflect, I am a very different person than I was even a year ago, but I really take pride in how I've developed, both alone and with the help of others, into the person I am now. I still have my main character flaws, as we all do, but I feel as though I am more aware of them without being worried about them. For example, the 'lack of credit' issue I just mentioned. I feel like now I can see something I've accomplished and give myself even some credit for it, an act I was nigh incapable of not so long ago. I take pride in my self-awareness and self-indentity.

I would also say I take pride and am confident in my ability to understand systems. This is a fairly general statement, but one I feel to be true. Examples would include people, relational theory, and video games.

To explain, with people I feel that I have an innate ability to undestand someone rather quickly and with quite a lot of depth. This is easily the most vague of my examples, but I can get a feel for someone rather quickly and more than one person has said I am able to "get inside their head" fairly easily.

Regarding relational theory, I am not, by any measurement, an expert on the subject. I am, however, rather able to understand high-level topics regarding it. The intracacies of a relational database management system like Oracle or MySQL are not what I'm talking about so much as how data of one type relates to data of another, normalization, and similar topics.

Lastly, video games and probably my most direct and easily-understood example. Sit me down in front of a game and I can master it within a matter of an hour or so (longer if the game is fairly complex). I can see the limits of the game. What it will allow you to do and what it's completely incapbale of. For example, and this holds true even today with photo-realistic 3D environments, pay attention to doors. Most video games with doors have different textures (a texture being the visual representation) for doors that can be opened versus ones that cannot. Sometimes it's as subtle as maybe a 5-pixel square area and others it's that the doors are completely different colors. I can spot things like this, and even things more in-depth, rather quickly.

Having re-read this to ensure I got my point across I think the second thing I am proud of can be more succinctly as my ability to observe. I will leave the above examples to illustrate my point, but I think I am very observant, though I may not always outwardly show it.

I am proud of who I am and how observant I am. I'm also pretty smart.

4. If you were allowed one magical take-back that would erase a single mistake in your life, what would you use it on?

I can't really think of anything. I mean, I can, but I'm very happy with the way things have turned out to date and I'm not sure how taking something back would have affected how things are now, even for the better.

There are several situations I can imagine where I should have acted sooner that would undoubtedly made my life easier, but I like to think I learned something from all of them. Exgirlfriends and exroommates come to mind. Then again, maybe waiting till after college, or a great deal of time before it, to discover sex would've been a great one given all the time I spent trying to get laid rather than studying.

In the end, I'll say crashing my Honda. It was a stupid mistake and one that could have been easily avoided. Very easily avoided. I can still feel the repercussions in the form of a waning auto loan and waxing gas prices. As it stands, my truck gets decent mileage, but not as good as my Honda.

5. Brewster's Millions, modified: If you were given twenty million dollars and a year to spend it, with the caveat that whatever you purchased you'd never be able to sell, nor could it make you any dividends itself, how would you spend it? You could keep your possessions, but only if you spent all the money before the year is out.

I would take everyone I know someplace they haven't been before anywhere in the world, all expenses paid, families and all. Groups of people wanting to go to the same destination could pair up or go separately. We'd spend 2-5 days there and return. See the sights or stay in and get trashed, doesn't matter. Just explore.

Any remaining money would go to purchasing my own personal island. And maybe a Skycar.

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THE GUIDELINES:

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."


2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.


3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.


4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.


5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Any takers? (via Joshua's Journals)

iTunes flips over and as the mp3 starts to play I'm snapped back about a year ago to the same place I'm sitting now. The memory fades and I'm staring at what feels like the same block of code from last summer except now I'm the one in control; no longer does it confuse me as it once did (well, at least not in the same infuriating capacity). And I think to myself, "What more than running into some random girl named Katie was happening in my life a year ago?" This blog, dear friends, is a record of that.

On reading the entries of May 2005 I have this to say: my intentionally vague style of writing has even me wondering what the fuck I was writing about. I need to not be so damn vague, but that can be hard to do when being less vague means being more open and damned if I don't want to do that all at once. That means you can get hurt! But, anyway...

The song was "Passing Afternoon" by Iron & Wine (whose musical stylings may surprise those of you who know what I commonly listen to) and while I haven't heard from Katie in nearly a year now, I can still look back last year with a certain fondness despite the incredbly rough times. Things are good now and with each passing month I can see that I am taking certain steps forward (with the occasional sideways step).

This past Sunday I ran in the Bay to Breakers marathon. By "ran" I, of course, mean that I "walked." It's a 7.2 mile trip and, thanks to sleeping in through my alarm, I joined the mass group of people around mile 4.5. I enjoyed myself, though, even if my hips still hate me for it. I joined my family and some family friends at The Cheiftain aftwards for a couple pints and a burger. My cousins, a couple years my junior, were there as well and it occured to me, in the middle of everything, that I have an incredible ability to spot potential alcoholism. My cousin, it would seem, is fond of the drink.

What a great super power to have. "Sense Alcoholism." Takes one to know one (though, thanks to Craig, friend of Tom, fiance of Emily, I am more "heavy drinker" than "alcoholic").

Regardless, I am glad the summer is (seemingly) here. I should take a vacation.

You dare doubt me?! Watch:

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3