Meet The Blogger

Rebecca from Circle of the Muses has passed along this interview meme. It works like this. She sent me five questions of her choosing. I share her questions and my answers here. Rebecca asked some interesting questions. Here they are, along with my answers...

1. Do you share your blog with your family and close friends from REAL life? Or do you keep your blog as a private space?

I debated about that for a while. I eventually told my wife about the blog. And I told her I had hesitations about telling her. She took it all pretty well. She often asks what I write about. She asks about comments I receive. But she has never actually looked at my blog. And no other family knows I blog.

As for friends, the same hesitation exists. Not because I'm writing bad things about them. But I want to write freely without ever having to check myself to see if I'm gonna upset someone. For that reason, only two other people in my real life know. And neither of them are regular readers. One of them told me, it was fun to read, but it was stuff they already knew. So unless I had something new to say, there was no reason to read things they already knew. LOL

2. You stumble upon a genuine 'Genie in a Bottle'. He grants you the obligatory 3 wishes. What are they going to be?

Well, it is hard to avoid the Miss America answers here - world peace, the end of hunger, a cure for cancer, etc. All of those are good things. But that seems too easy here. Rebecca would want me to stretch myself beyond the obvious.

But first, what I would not wish for. Many people assume I would wish for Son17 to not have is disabilities. I don't think I would make that wish. To me, that would imply that he is not a beautiful person just as he is. He has his own integrity. His own personality. His own contributions to make. To wish that he were different feels as if I'm denying the whole person that he is now.

That being said, what would I wish?

I would wish for all three of my kids to have lives filled with love and joy. I want them to be successful in whatever they do.

I would wish that we could all live with less violence - in every form. Less war. Less crime. I guess the events of this past week weigh heavily on me with this one.

And Rebecca, I'm no fool! I would use my last wish to wish for more wishes! Cause I really do want to get in the Miss America things. And winning the lottery. And I would love to have someone else paint my garage doors for me.

3. Do you feel that the media coverage of unspeakable tragedies, such as 9/11 and Virginia Tech, has any kind of helpful or educational value?

Or is it all entirely exploitive?

I think it is important for us to know what happens in the world. Timely news coverage is important. But in moments like this, I do believe it goes way over the line. We could get the necessary information with much less coverage than what we saw this week. I think this much coverage begins to create a somewhat mythical figure of the perpetrator. I think this much coverage intrudes on the privacy and grief of the family and friends who lost loved ones. And I think this much coverage begins to minimize the event itself. The media people give these events names, they create graphics, they turn it into a news "event" which I believe takes away for the actual horror and severity of the moment.

4. You are given the opportunity to take 1 journey in a time-machine, back to any place or time in the history of mankind. The only restriction is that you go as an observer only. You are not permitted to alter any of the circumstances. Where will you go, and what will you see?

Wow! This is tough. Just one time in all of history...how to choose? I could witness some of the signatures on the Declaration of Independence. I could witness (if it happened) the resurrection of Jesus. I could witness my own birth. In truth, I'm not a student of history. That was always one of my worst subjects. So I'm sure I'm overlooking some obvious moment in time that I would love to see but I'm just not thinking of at the moment. And it would surely change my choices if I could interact and change events. But just as a witness...this is tough. I think I'll pick something that would just be fun. Not a major event in history. But a fun time to read about...a time that has spawned many books and movies and celebrations. I would drop back and witness a day during the Renaissance period. It would be fun to see the knights and the maidens and the jousting and so forth.

5. In your fondest childhood daydreams, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Ah, never a fireman or policeman for me. As a kid I wanted to grow up to be a performer. An actor or musician would have been okay. But the ultimate performer would have been a magician. I love magic. I've been to see David Copperfield live. I'm in awe of the combined skill and performance ability of good magicians. They must have the skill of their craft. But so much of what they do is interact with the audience, suck them in, make them focus on one thing while something else is happening out of their sight. And to pull off a trick when every person in the room is totally focused on figuring out how you are doing it...that is performing!

Rebecca, thank you for your fun and thoughtful questions! This was fun.

And now, in the spirit of the meme, I will pass it on. So if YOU would like to participate...

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me.
2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your weblog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Just make sure that your email is listed on your blog, or leave it in your comment so I can send you questions.

And I won't try to come up with 5 unique questions for every person who might leave a comment. My brain would get tired. So I'll interview the first couple of folks who express a desire to expose themselves to my probing. Rebecca promised to be nice with her questions. I make no such guarantee. ;)