Blog Interview Meme Strikes Gazette!
Category: Memes...
Posted Sunday, April 03, 2005 at 03:17 PM [GMT-6]

The ever-lovely Rachel of Life Being Beautiful somehow talked me into participating in her blogger interview meme (I think it was her New Zealand accent, which I can't resist. OK, I've never actually heard her speak, but I'm sure it's there...and it's irresistible!). If you're not familiar with this meme, it's pretty simple. She poses five questions and I answer them. Here are the questions; my answers follow.

Question one - You are married. How did you meet your wife and what was it that made you know that she was the one?

Question 2 - As you know, One day I am hoping to get to Texas. If you were in charge of my itinerary - what would be on it?

Question 3 - What is your most poignant childhood moment? What sights/smells (etc) invoke this memory?

Question 4 - If Peter Jackson had offered you a role in Lord of the Rings, what part would it have been and why? Which part would you ideally like?

Question 5 - When all the remodelling is completed in your house…What will be your favourite feature?

Bonus (because I can and thought of another question): Apple computers are your preferred computer. What started you on this path and what is one reason that you stick with them?

Question 1 - Wait; I'm married?! Oh, yeah...now I remember. I thought I had just died and gone to heaven where I was in the continual presence of my own beautiful angel! Actually, I met MLB in high school. My first recollection was seeing this dark-haired, dark-eyed vision of beauty enter the bandhall. She and her family had just transferred from another city. As it turned out, we both played the clarinet, and the buses on long band trips can get quite cozy and, well, the rest is history. (Seriously, though, it turned out that we had a lot in common, the most important thing being our Christian faith.)

Question 2 - You know, Rachel, a famous American general once said "if I owned Texas and Hell, I've live in Hell and rent out Texas!" But he was probably a yankee and therefore his motives were suspect. Anyway, if you were to be fortunate enough to come to Texas the main sights I'd want you to see would be in the southwestern part of the state where I live. Being from New Zealand, I don't think you'd be overly impressed with the beaches on the Gulf Coast, attractive as they are, or the sprawling metropolitan areas like Houston and Dallas, sprawling as they are. But I think you'd appreciate the desolate beauty of the Big Bend National Park, the Davis Mountains and the Guadalupe Mountains National Park. The vast display of God's handiwork makes it difficult for me to understand how anyone can be an atheist.

Then, of course, we'd have to see the giant Road Runner in Fort Stockton and stuff ourselves with Tex-Mex!

[You must realize that Texas is almost three times as big as New Zealand, so it's really difficult to answer your question in just one paragraph. The state has at least five different regions, each of which has its own cultural and geographical attractions.]

Question 3 - Poignant childhood moment? Hmmm. You mean, other than my wedding? ;-) Well, it's hard to pick just one, but I'd have to say that the best memories of childhood are those of just being outside and playing in the west Texas summer. Maybe my hometown was small (it was) or maybe it was just a simpler time (it was), but our lives as children were much less structured and scheduled than those of today's kids. I can remember the amazing find of a discarded cardboard refrigerator box, which immediately was transformed into an army tank (use your imagination) that allowed me to roll through weeds and over bumps and sticker bushes with complete impunity. Those memories can still be triggered just by stepping outside on a hot summer day.

Question 4 - That's easy: Gandalf. He's really the only one with a clue, you know. Although I never figured out how he rode a horse while wearing that robe. I'd definitely need some pointers with that.

Question 5 - Remodeling? Complete? Ha! One day, you'll own a home and you'll realize just how oxymoronic those two terms are. But, just for argument's sake, let's assume that we really do someday "complete the remodeling." My favorite part will be the fact that during the process, we discovered that my office works better out in the game room, instead of our bedroom, and made that change permanent. Sometimes you have to completely upheave your life to see the value in some drastic changes.

Bonus Question (I wouldn't answer SIX questions for just anybody, you know) - My coming to the Mac is a long and boring story, but suffice it to say that at one time, corporations were actually enlightened enough to realize that the platform was superior to DOS and its successors. The day I first sat down in front of that little Mac SE and used a mouse instead of cryptic line commands, I was hooked and never looked back. I stick with 'em because they're simply the best tool for my work. Then there's this: since 1990, I've owned only four computers, all of them Macs, and I've never had a catastrophic failure in any of them...never had a virus...never had spyware...and I've never been unable to do the job at-hand due to lack of software or because of incapable hardware.

OK, Rach...hope that satisfies your curiosity. I still think you could have found someone more interesting to interview, but thanks for "listening"!