| What is your most memorable childhood experience? | When I was eight years old I accompanied my father on a trip to Australia. While in Queensland, we took a voyage out to a coral atoll in the Great Barrier Reef on the brigantine "Golden Plover." I climbed the rigging to the top of the foremast and got to keep watch on the trip out and back. It was amazing to sit so high above the waves with just the gulls and the wind for company. |
| What immediate family member do you closely identify with and why? | I believe that I most closely identify with my father. I look up to him in many ways; about the adventures that he had as a young man and how he has continued to redefine himself throughout his life. I find now, as I am getting older with a family of my own, that we share many of the same character traits and mannerisms. My father continues to be a foundational personality in my life but we now share a friendship more as peers than before. |
| What character traits do you admire in an individual? | I admire passion, confidence, tolerance and critical thinking. |
| What is the funniest thing ever to happen to you? | One of the funniest things to have happened to me took place on the outer coast of Alaska during a summer archeological dig. A classmate and I were interns at our local museum and had been selected to assist with a dig on federal land. It was going to be deep in the wilderness hundreds of miles by boat or air from the nearest civilization. It was also bear country so the camp took all the necessary precautions of keeping our food in sealed fifty-five gallon drums, having the cook tent on the other end of the beach, about five hundred yards from the sleeping tents and carrying the usual protection of a shotgun and bear mace. One night during a severe storm the fly on my tent ripped on one side and went slack. During the night the fly pooled water on the roof of the tent before it began draining through the fly and tent roof in a fine stream. I woke up soaked to the bone and freezing while still inside my sleeping bag. All of my gear was soaked in a pool of water and I had no recourse except to tramp down the beach in a gale to the cook tent, which, luckily, had a massive space heater. I hauled myself and my sopping sleeping bag down to the cook tent and got myself sorted. After I'd dried out I settled down to sleep in the cook tent since mine was most certainly inundated. I was nervous about bears and sleeping with the greasy pots so I grabbed a can of bear mace and slept with it clutched to my chest. Not long after drifting off I awoke to the sound of crunching gravel footsteps approaching the tent. It was most certainly a bear coming to investigate the campsite. I kept quiet and readied the mace as the steps came closer and closer right up to the door of the tent. Zzzzip! Zzzip! Wait! Bears don't use zippers! It turns out that it was my classmate in much the same situation as I, cold, wet and looking for warmth. Luckily, we never did use the mace on bears or each other. |
| If time and money were not an issue, where would you travel and why? | I'd love to have the opportunity to take a submersible to the bottom of the ocean and view some of the deep sea thermal vents and the colonies of life that grow up around them. It is so interesting to see different forms of life that have developed in utterly alien environments to our own. A close second might be to dive in the underground rivers found under the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. Again, it would be a new, beautiful world to explore outside of my normal element. |
| When and if you ever have children, what would you like to pass on to them? | I currently have a son and I want to teach him to be honest, hardworking, gregarious, to take joy in discovery and be confident to undertake adventures. I look forward to introducing him to many of the wonders of the world, be they man-made or natural. I wish to pass on a love of life and all of the experiences that it can provide. |
