| What is your most memorable childhood experience? | The most memorable childhood experience was spending a weekend with my paternal grandfather at the university he graduated from. This was a program for alumni and their grandchildren where they pick a major and spend two days learning about that major. We did this the first 5 or 6 years of the program. We chose majors such as History, Civil Engineering, and Aerospace Engineering. |
| What immediate family member do you closely identify with and why? | I closely identify with my father. We both are very logical and only take acceptable risks where we've done a lot of research. We are both very mechanically inclined and enjoy learning how things work and fixing things when needed. We both work well on our own as well as working with others. |
| What character traits do you admire in an individual? | Character traits that I admire in an individual include honesty, confidence, and having an open mind. No one likes being lied to and lying tends to make situations worse, so honesty is key. I admire confidence as I can lack confidence at times. I look up to those that are confident in themselves or what they are doing and not being overly confident. And having an open mind shows that you are willing to listen to others and may try to understand their perspective or ideas and also offer your own suggestions or think outside the box. I'm a problem solver and having an open mind can go a long way with this. |
| What is the funniest thing ever to happen to you? | One of the funniest things that's happened to me was a series of unfortunate events that happened over the course of three different annual trips to my family cabin. For the first one, the group of friends and I piled into my Pontiac Grand Prix, and we were talking about the car insurance tracking devices that track miles, quick acceleration and deceleration. I had one in my car at the time. One friend piped up and said that his device beeped when he'd hit the brakes hard. I stated I didn't think mine did, but let's try. I proceeded to slam on the brakes and at that point, my brake line blew a hole, and my brakes went out. Thankfully we were safe and just a few hundred yards from the cabin. The second event the next year, we were sitting around the table playing card games and a mosquito had infiltrated the cabin. It landed on a window, and I decided to try and kill it by hitting it. This was mostly a poor choice as I busted the internal windowpane, though I didn't hurt myself and I did get the mosquito. The third and final event of the series was again the following year. We were out on the boat after dinner and decided to go up the main river off of the lake. I was not aware that I needed to steer wide around the final corner on our way back down the river and hit a low spot and busted all three blades off the propeller. We were stuck and only had one paddle. Thankfully, a fisherman and his wife happened to be cruising by and we were able to flag them down and they were nice enough to tow us back. I offered them money for their time and fuel towing us back. The man almost denied it, but his wife snatched it out of my hand very graciously. These events were a bit unfortunate at the time but were funny after the fact, and we continue to laugh about them to this day! |
| If time and money were not an issue, where would you travel and why? | If time and money were not an issue, there are three places I would like to travel to. First, Scotland to see the one granite mine that Curling Stones come from. Second, Antarctica as my paternal grandfather once got to travel there while in the Navy. I like the cold and have been envious of his trip there. Lastly, I'd like to travel back to Banff, Alberta to go hiking and skiing. |
| When and if you ever have children, what would you like to pass on to them? | If or when I have children, I'd like to pass on my passion for curling. Curling has taken me to many places around the US and even a couple places in Europe, and I've met so many good people. It's been a very challenging but rewarding hobby and would love for my children to experience this as well, whether it be with curling or any other type of hobby. |
