| What is your most memorable childhood experience? | A memorable experience from my childhood is attending family reunions. My mother's family would have them every year. Even though everyone was spread across the country, I was able to know my grandparents, uncles and aunts, and cousins. They are still my friends. |
| What immediate family member do you closely identify with and why? | I identify most with my father because I aspire to be like him. He is easy to speak with. I have never seen him angry. He loves and cares for his family. |
| What character traits do you admire in an individual? | I admire people who are inclusive in their outlook and recognize the humanity and nobility in other people. I admire people who hold to deliberately reasoned principles, and are humble enough to update the principles as time and experience pass. I admire people who honestly work to communicate well. |
| What is the funniest thing ever to happen to you? | My parents had a fairly generic digital alarm clock from the early 80s. There was a time in HS that I was in a thrift store and I found the exact same model. I had never seen another one before, and this looked exactly like the one at home. I purchased it, and hid it until we moved shortly later. I snuck it into one of the boxes, and looked forward to the confusion that would ensue when there were two identical alarm clocks where before there was only one.
We moved and unpacked, and no one noticed. One ended up in a closet, and the other in the garage. I waited patiently until someone noticed, but no one ever did.
I took one of the clocks to college and I still have it.
Recently, while visiting my family, the conversation turned to the clock. It turns out that not only did I take the clock with me when I moved out, but so did two of my brothers.
My family is so shifty that I haven't figured out who else tried the same prank that I did. |
| If time and money were not an issue, where would you travel and why? | I would spend time sailing the Caribbean and Pacific. It would be fantastic to regularly see the stars free from light pollution, visit remote and relatively unvisited areas, listen to the moving water, dive in different areas, and visit a variety of cities both large and small. |
| When and if you ever have children, what would you like to pass on to them? | I want to pass on to my children a sense of curiosity, hope for the world and the future, and the disposition to seek to understand other people. |
