Interview Me!
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by asking you 5 questions of a very personal nature.
3. Update your LJ with the answers to the questions. And post them in a comment here too, if you don't mind.
4. Include this and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, ask them 5 questions.
From Jazzfish:
1) Where are you from?
I was born in a small college town in northwestern Ohio. I have only a few fleeting memories - I think we moved away when I was 4, and hopped around various smallish towns in Illinois, Ohio, and Pennsylvania throughout my childhood as my father changed jobs (and now my adult life.)
2) What takes up most of your spare time these days?
That's gonna depend on the definition of 'spare time' - right now in the middle of the baseball season most of my time not at my desk at my primary job is taken up by baseball. When I'm not working for one of my employers I'm usually at home trying some desperate, futile gesture to keep up with all the annoying little things that go with home ownership (including, say, moving in) that get neglected when I work several 14+ hour days in a row.
Either that, or pointedly not doing those things by way of R&R - watching through my DVD collection, playing video games, going to the gym (174 at last weigh in, though that's after a succession of 4 particularly brutal baseball games in a row, so it's probably mostly water weight) and trying to convince the few remaining friends I have in the area that we really should hang out sometime if our schedules ever synch up.
3) What three people have had a disproportionate effect on your life?
A disproportionate effect? Okay - that's going to be a tricky one. I mean, what's a proportionate effect in this context? I guess I'll take that to mean people who've had a major effect on my life, despite my knowing them fairly briefly or not that well.
- Betty, a congregant at a church where my father serving as interim pastor. She's a wonderful woman, and the grandmother of some of my oldest friends (meaning I've been friends with them longer than anyone else I still keep in touch with) - yes, predating my friendship with Shin, even. I know Betty mostly in passing - but it was a tip from her that I should look to the Commonwealth for employment that eventually landed me my job. Which in the economy then and in the economy now, I'm grateful for.
- Two people I won't name but I will treat as a single entry, because they formed a tag-team that for a time made my time with the Senators unpleasant to the point of distraction until I ended up quitting on principle (The only time I've ever done that, and I returned the following season after learning they had both left the team.) I mean, I only knew them for a few months in the one case and a little over a year in the other, but I'm still dealing with the fallout of some of their bad decisions (turned bad precedents) and my history with them still colors my view of the team and its staff 2 years later, perhaps unfairly.
- Paul Grout, a preacher who I've heard preach exactly once, at the CoB's National Youth Conference in 1998. I remember very little of the sermon itself; It started with him assembling a home-made mannequin of Jesus and then crucifying it on stage, and I think the gist of the actual sermon was "Christ is dead and we killed him." After the sermon he did an alter call, and I distinctly remember feeling like I was frozen in my seat, partly in fear, partly in shock - I could not will my body to move. After the service, I ran back to my room and started to just write freehand - pouring out what was in retrospect one of my first real crises of faith. Which ended just as abruptly, in my first real transcendent experience.
4) What's your favorite poem?
Off the top of my head, "Venetian Air" by Thomas Moore:
Row gently here, my gondolier; So softly wake the tide,
That not an ear on earth may hear, but hers to whom we glide,
Had Heaven but tongues to speak, as well as starry eyes to see,
Oh think what tales 'twould have to tell of wand'ring youths like me!
Now rest thee here, my gondolier; hush, hush, for up I go,
To climb yon light balcony's height, while thou keep'st watch below.
Ah! Did we take for Heaven above but half such pains as we
Take day and night for woman's love, what angels we should be!
5) Where are you going?
I started to write my answer to this, but it sort of went off on a weird tangent about where my life is now and has some pretty deeply personal stuff in it, so I'm going to hold off on answering until I've had a better chance to collect my thoughts.
2. I will respond by asking you 5 questions of a very personal nature.
3. Update your LJ with the answers to the questions. And post them in a comment here too, if you don't mind.
4. Include this and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, ask them 5 questions.
From Jazzfish:
1) Where are you from?
I was born in a small college town in northwestern Ohio. I have only a few fleeting memories - I think we moved away when I was 4, and hopped around various smallish towns in Illinois, Ohio, and Pennsylvania throughout my childhood as my father changed jobs (and now my adult life.)
2) What takes up most of your spare time these days?
That's gonna depend on the definition of 'spare time' - right now in the middle of the baseball season most of my time not at my desk at my primary job is taken up by baseball. When I'm not working for one of my employers I'm usually at home trying some desperate, futile gesture to keep up with all the annoying little things that go with home ownership (including, say, moving in) that get neglected when I work several 14+ hour days in a row.
Either that, or pointedly not doing those things by way of R&R - watching through my DVD collection, playing video games, going to the gym (174 at last weigh in, though that's after a succession of 4 particularly brutal baseball games in a row, so it's probably mostly water weight) and trying to convince the few remaining friends I have in the area that we really should hang out sometime if our schedules ever synch up.
3) What three people have had a disproportionate effect on your life?
A disproportionate effect? Okay - that's going to be a tricky one. I mean, what's a proportionate effect in this context? I guess I'll take that to mean people who've had a major effect on my life, despite my knowing them fairly briefly or not that well.
- Betty, a congregant at a church where my father serving as interim pastor. She's a wonderful woman, and the grandmother of some of my oldest friends (meaning I've been friends with them longer than anyone else I still keep in touch with) - yes, predating my friendship with Shin, even. I know Betty mostly in passing - but it was a tip from her that I should look to the Commonwealth for employment that eventually landed me my job. Which in the economy then and in the economy now, I'm grateful for.
- Two people I won't name but I will treat as a single entry, because they formed a tag-team that for a time made my time with the Senators unpleasant to the point of distraction until I ended up quitting on principle (The only time I've ever done that, and I returned the following season after learning they had both left the team.) I mean, I only knew them for a few months in the one case and a little over a year in the other, but I'm still dealing with the fallout of some of their bad decisions (turned bad precedents) and my history with them still colors my view of the team and its staff 2 years later, perhaps unfairly.
- Paul Grout, a preacher who I've heard preach exactly once, at the CoB's National Youth Conference in 1998. I remember very little of the sermon itself; It started with him assembling a home-made mannequin of Jesus and then crucifying it on stage, and I think the gist of the actual sermon was "Christ is dead and we killed him." After the sermon he did an alter call, and I distinctly remember feeling like I was frozen in my seat, partly in fear, partly in shock - I could not will my body to move. After the service, I ran back to my room and started to just write freehand - pouring out what was in retrospect one of my first real crises of faith. Which ended just as abruptly, in my first real transcendent experience.
4) What's your favorite poem?
Off the top of my head, "Venetian Air" by Thomas Moore:
Row gently here, my gondolier; So softly wake the tide,
That not an ear on earth may hear, but hers to whom we glide,
Had Heaven but tongues to speak, as well as starry eyes to see,
Oh think what tales 'twould have to tell of wand'ring youths like me!
Now rest thee here, my gondolier; hush, hush, for up I go,
To climb yon light balcony's height, while thou keep'st watch below.
Ah! Did we take for Heaven above but half such pains as we
Take day and night for woman's love, what angels we should be!
5) Where are you going?
I started to write my answer to this, but it sort of went off on a weird tangent about where my life is now and has some pretty deeply personal stuff in it, so I'm going to hold off on answering until I've had a better chance to collect my thoughts.