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1. Leave me a comment saying, 'Interview me.'

2. I will respond by asking you five questions of a very intimate and creepily personal nature. Or not so creepy/personal. Or downright silly, taking into account how I think.

3. You will update your LJ with the answers to the questions.

4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post.

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

1. Why did you leave Chicago, and how do you feel about the city now?

I left Chicago when I graduated college, largely to help my mother pay the mortgage on her house as she recovered from illness. I like Chicago a lot, although it can frequently seem like a 3 million person sportsbar.

2. Do you feel that you are most yourself at Burning Man or do you create an alternate self that fits best into that environment?

I don't create an alternate self there, I feel pretty much as much at home wherever. Whether or not I feel at home is more an attribute of my specific mood rather than my location.

3. What is your favorite color?

I like maroon a lot.

4. If you were given a chance to be considered on paper, and in every other official way, completely through with grad school and already ensconced in the job you would like to have without having to do any more academic work, would you do it?

Yes. I'm not attached to the idea of being in grad school and am here to meet specific life objectives, which I seem to be doing.

5. Squares, triangles, circles or hexagons, and why?

Hexagons, largely because they stack nicely and they're the highest-n regular polygon that does. I've always been fond of hex paper for that reason.

If your cat could talk, what would she say about your best friend?

That she doesn't hang out with her enough. My cat likes my best friend a lot, but the cat gets lonely when I'm out of town, which is usually when they meet. I have a few people I consider best friends, only one local.

Which of the Gilligan's Island characters do you best identify with and why?

I don't know the show well enough to answer this question.

The world as we know it is about to end. However, you have knowledge of the only safe place on earth. This location can support 4 people indefinitely. Who would you choose to come with you?

Probably

rimrunner, an unnamed friend, and I can't think of a third person specifically off the top of my head. Too much of who I'd chose to save would be context dependent, it's just difficult to think about.

What was the most interesting place you've ever visited?

I've always been a big fan of the Yang-Tze gorges in China. They stand out a lot in my memory.

If you could be anything, what would it be?

healthy.

1. Do you have any siblings? If so, how many, how old, and what gender?
I have a brother two years younger than I am.

2. What (so far) geocaching spot have you enjoyed the most? Why?
There was a cache in Oklahoma that was on the edge of a cliff. I had to climb down to the bottom of the cliff, and I still didn't find it. I then treked the long way around to get back to my truck. I liked it because it was beautiful and there was a large sense of adventure attached to being there. It was also during flood season, and there was a river at the bottom of the cliff. Just really beautiful. I don't have this cache logged because I didn't find it, and it's since been deleted from geocaching.com.

3. What is your favorite cheese?
My favorite cheese is Scamorza, which is an variant of Mozzarella found mostly in Italy. Similar in flavor, it's more refined and fresher tasting and since it isn't pumped out in the same quantities that mozzarella is, it tends to be higher quality. I have a lot of strong associations with this cheese, largely related to my past and not food. My favorite party cheeses are Royal Windsor (cheddar mixed with Elderberry wine layered with blue stilton) and Camebert (which I feel is superior to bree.) I grew up in New England, so my standard food cheese is extra-sharp vermont cheddar, undyed.

4. Do you think we’d recognize each other on the street?

Probably. I have a good idea what you look like and tend to have a good memory for faces.

5. It’s only Wednesday. Given that your basic needs are taken care of, what would you spend your last $10 on for the week?

an energy drink on Friday morning. Possibly a new nalgene bottle. coffee or a drink with friends on saturday.

1. What is the one thing you've seen at Burning Man that you have been incapable of fully processing?
the food in the commissary.

2. You've been given the opportunity to open a bar to your own specifications, funds not an issue. What kind of bar would you open?
I would open a bar more geared towards discussion and talking. It would be more like barca than you'd expect, really, except it would have more couches for people to lay around and talk on instead of the standard bar tables. Also, there would be lots of sofas and suchlike for people to sit on. If possible, it would have many tiki decor elements. Also, there would be a good stage for piano playing and other similar live music.

3. What should happen to the internet to make it better?
People should start observing the idempotency requirements of HTTP methods. Also, there would be agents that would be able to intelligently interact with sites to share personal information with them according to your preferences and spam mailers wouldn't. Also, people should give up on this whole phone thing and just reimage the cell phone network as part of the internet using voice over ip. Locally, anytime anyone at Qwest screwed with 3rd provider local loop provision or last mile services to maintain their wack-ass monopoly, someone would hit their CEO in the face with a hammer.

4. What is your favorite type of traditional ethnic music?
Qawwali, which is sacred Sufi music.

5. Are road trips better by yourself or with someone else?
Most experiences are better shared, assuming you're sharing them with the right person. I have highish privacy needs, but the right person doesn't interfere with them much.

1. Assuming that there is some sense of either religious or social fulfillment that people get from going to Burning Man, what is it about your personality that made you START going, and what sort of outlet does that provide you on a yearly basis?
I went to burning man originally because I was bored and my friends said it was fun, it was socially fulfilling largely because I made friends there and I enjoy hanging out with them. I think that the honesty and openness of many of the people involved keep bringing me back, as well as my overall belief that public are is a good thing.

2. If you could live anywhere in the world, money not an object, where would it be? If money WAS a concern?
Near friends.

3. What's the coolest thing you've ever built?
I think the machine is probably the coolest physical object I've been involved in building.

4. How would you like to be remembered? If you died tomorrow, what would you miss the most?
I would like to be remembered as a person who tried to do the right thing even when it wasn't popular or convenient. I don't know what I'd miss the most if I died tomorrow, but I would miss friends a lot. I'd also miss my cat. I'd miss the spirit of adventure and coincidence I get from everyday living.

5. And a dorky one, favorite kind of sushi, and why? :)
I like tomago a lot. It just tastes really nice.

1. You are required to have a sit down dinner with an accountant, a mine worker, and imam from Dubai, and Madonna. What kinds of conversations would you start to keep the evening rolling?
I would start with some small questions to help find similarities between the guests, things they find funny in common. I would talk about mountains, and the sea. I would ask people about what they cared about, what they were doing, and why they'd done it.

2. Besides Information Science what is your dream job?
I am frequently sad that I didn't finish my PhD.

3. You have been instructed to learn and document an indigenous language. Which one would you pick?
I don't believe in the concept of indigenous, really, we are all travellers. However, given the chance, I would probably learn Quiche Mayan.

4. If you could make one, but only one change to the current state of our government, what would it be?
I would make politicians accountable to the same standards that existed when nixon was in office.

5. What is your ideal vacation, and have you had a chance to take said vacation yet?
I've always wanted to go to Italy, I haven't yet. For preference, with someone I care about to share the experience with.