Interview Number 6

These came from kaasirpent

1. You can send one, brief message back in time to your younger self. When do you send it to and what do you say?
STUDY ABROAD. It's the one thing that I very seriously regret that I didn't pursue more seriously when I was in school, and an opportunity that I'm not likely to ever get to do again. In particular, I wish that I had found a way to do the "summer session" in Luxembourg that my school offered. It was only 6 weeks, but designed to give you lots of opportunity to travel around and experience a bunch of different countries.

2. How did you and Wiley meet?
First week of college. The very first time, he and his friend Jesse were walking through our dorm introducing themselves to random people who had their doors open. I thought he looked like a guy I'd thought was crazy hott from my high school. He thought I was nuts, since I insisted on showing him a picture, and he didn't think he did. Saturday of that same week, I'd gotten dragged to a horrible frat party by some new friends who were trying to cure my homesickness. I didn't really drink, and all they had ws bad beer and horrible vodka punch anyway (bleah). Wiley and Jesse walked into the party with some yummy strawberry daquiri-esque drinks and my friends started talking to them. A bunch of us ended up sitting on the couch at the frat house watching bad movies until like 3 in the morning. Wiley walked me home since most of my friends had left, and I wasn't actually sure how to get back to my dorm. Once we got there, he insisted that I stay up with him, and we sat in the dorm lounge until 10 the next morning talking. The rest is, as they say, history.

3. What one thing (that you feel like sharing with the world) do you hold most sacred?
That everyone has the right to hold and express any opinion that they care to believe in, and my right to decide that they're complete idiots because of their opinions.

4. What's your ideal home? (i.e., where would you most like to live, discounting everything else)
Well, my favorite city is San Francisco, so ideally I'd live there. But, really, I think I've recently figured out that the most important thing to me about where I want to live is that I want to be able to step out my front door and be able to walk to at least half of the things I consider necessities. It doesn't have to be a big city at all, I'd be just as happy living near a decent downtown in a small city or even a small town. The things that I'd consider necessities are: decent coffee shop, at least 1 good restaurant, a decent sized convenience store or small grocery. If there was public transport available, I'd like to be near that. And in an ideal world, there would also be a bookstore, a movie theatre, multiple ood restaurants, and some good browsing stores.

5. What do you like the most about your present job?
Getting to go out and interact with the customers, doing installs and training. That's mostly because I very much like the newspaper environment. That's why I want to go back to school and get a degree that'll help me get a job at a paper. So, I guess technically, right now the thing I like the most is that it helped me figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life.

Interview #6

These came from dchenes

1. What do you like in your coffee?
Hot: Cream and sugar. Iced: Skim milk and sugar

2. What's the most fun stitching project you've done?
I think Widget's baby sampler - because I picked all new colors and fabric and made it really my own. I lovedthat part of it, and then the piece itself stitched up so quickly and beautifully that I got nearly instantaneous rewards from it.

3. What's your favorite historical period, and would you want to live in it?
Urban America in the 1920's - the emerging modernity, the beginnings of the technological age, the evolving changes of family lives all hold fascination for me. I don't think I'd want tolive there permanently, but I'd love to go back and live it in for a few months.

4. What did you want to be when you grew up?
Oooh, I changd my mind about 17 times when I was a kid - typical doctor! no, fireman! no, vet! no, lawyer! kind of thing. When I was in college I thought I wanted to be a teacher, then a semester of pre-practicum time cleared my head of those delusions. After that I didn't have anything I wanted to be, which is pretty much how I ended up here.

5. What's your favorite comic strip, online or otherwise?
Wow. tough choice. I think I'd have to pick Rose is Rose, because it so wonderfully captures the magic and beauty of everyday life, without being endlessly repetitive. I love Vicki, and Peekaboo, and the love affair between Rose and Jimbo.

Interview number ...7?

These came from dietbubba

1. If Boston is losing its charm for you, where would you ideally like to go?
If money were no object, San Francisco. If we're living in the real world, see my answer to Kaa - I just want to live somewhere where I'm not 95% dependent on having a car. If I could do that in or around Boston, I would, but the cost makes that unlikely, so anywhere I could afford to do that.

2. When eating sushi, what makes your mouth water the most?
Salmon sashimi. I could eat pounds of it.

3. You travel a lot alone because of work, but if you were to take a family vacation somewhere outside of driving distance, where would you want to go?
Family vacation? In two years (IE, when Widget is old enough to take lessons) skiing out West - Telluride, or maybe Whistler. It would make Wiley happy, Widget could take lessons in the morning, which would give me mornings free to relax and do whatever I wanted to. When Widget's older, I'd love to go back to the Grand Canyon and hike and raft there for a week or so.

4. What book resonated emotionally the most with you?
Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote, I think.

5. Just what is the draw of Mary Chungs?
Suan la Chow Show (essentially dumplings over bean sprouts with a very spicy dressing. I've never seen it in any other Chinese restaurant. I think they have the best Peking Ravioli I've ever eaten, and they have a number of dishes that I've never seen elsewhere that are just delicious.

Whew.

I think I'm all caught up on the interviews, both asking and answering. If I missed your questions, or a request for an interview, let me know!

More interview goodness

These are from prunesnprisms

1. YOU can fix one thing about your job. How do you effect your change?
Just like you, I get the big guy out of our day to day lives. Assuming I have ways to make it happen, I find him a dream task elsewhere. If we're talking things that might happen, I find us an intermediary between support and development. S/he'd have most of Andrew's knowledge and skills, have the ability to make minor code revisions, nd be able to help us better troubleshoot things like the recent Incremental issues. They'd also have Andrew's ayttention when they needed it, because he'd know they only bothered him when it was truly necessary.

2. Do you hear voices?
Not in the schitzophrenic sense of the word. I definitely have, for lack of a better word, different personalities in my own head that "talk" to me, and have wildly different reactions to events in my life. Sometimes they're quite loud, too.

3. How do you think you would handle living in a less information-saturated, low tech, non-hasty environment, for example, if you were transported back in time, or if there were a major technological breakdown in the future?
I think I'd love it. I don't process information quickly, and I find our pace of life, with everything coming at you all at once overwhelming. Give me a good once a week newspaper, and the time to read it, and I'm a happy woman. I'd much prefer having things that work more slowly, given that I was actually given the time to do what I needed to get done.

4. Carrots or broccoli?
Broccoli.

5. In one word, describe how you want to be perceived by others when you're old. (80+)
Entertaining

Interview from my darling

1: If you had an extra 20 hours every week of free time, what would you do with it?
I'm assuming these are hours where no one has any claim to my time, and I can disperse them through the week as I see fit. Ooooh. I'd take more long showers where I get to shave and lotion and pamper myself. I'd try to spend at least 5 of themn with Widget, without being impatient and feeling like she was keeping me from other things. I'd try to sleep a little more, and then spend the balance doing whatever I felt like that week (crafting, reading, spending time with you).

2: What's the one most important thing you want to teach Widget?
To be self sufficient; as part of that lesson that she can do anything that she wants (or needs to), and that she never needs to lean on anyone else for anything.

3: Which Geocache would you MOST like to search for and find?
I haven't spent enough time looking around to find one that I dream of finding. One that's somewhere delightfully exotic.

4: Mac or PC?
Mac

5: If you could spend more time with one friend you don't normally see, or know very well, who would it be?
Elaine. I miss having her in my life on the kind of day to day basis.

(no subject)

These are from kieron

1. Why did you decide on the place you got married at? (for the life of me I can't remeber the name...Sturbridge?)
Well, I'm a history geek by nature. And I knew Sturbridge, and knew how pretty it was, and I was aiming for something that was a little unique. Especially since we aren't at all affiliated with a church, but I wanted something that felt churchy without having to be so. I saw their ad in one of my wedding magazines, and I just *knew* it was what I wanted.

2. Who, not in your immediate family, has the most impact on you and your life?
Wow. I'm not really sure. Ironically, probably a guy named Jon Ludgate, who referred me for my first "real" job after college, who coached me on how to pass the interiew, and essentially got me the job. Once I had that job, and I lucked into a truckload of free training, I was qualified for the job I have now. Without that first help, I'd probably be a secretary somewhere making a third of what I make and hating it just as much. Haven't spoken to or seen him in many a year, though.

3. Have you lived up to your expectations?
Not in the slightest. I'm working on accepting that.

4. Is there anyone on your friends list with whom you would like to say something profound(either to you or them) to, but never have for whatever reason? Who and What? You can not answer the second part if you don't want to:)
Not really. Most of the time when I try to be profound, I just end up sound hackneyed and trite.

5. What event in your life, good or bad, has had the most effect on you?
Absolutely, becoming a mother.