thisiswhatyoushalldo

1. What weird food combinations do you really enjoy?

I may have written about this before, but I like to wrap a Pringles potato chip in a leaf of iceberg lettuce and make a crispy “unwich”; the salt, the sweet, and the crunch are satisfying. I also like uncooked egg noodles “raw,” But that is just weird.

2. What would a world populated by clones of you be like?

That is a lot of people making a lot of out loud, inane observations and bad attempts at jokes all the time. As well as a world of pretty clumsy people.

3. What inanimate object would be the most annoying if it played loud upbeat music while being used?

The dishwasher. We have a nice, quiet dishwasher, but it seems to run for a long time. If it played loud, annoying, perhaps inappropriate music that can’t be muted, well, then I guess hand-washing everything would be the course of the day.

4. What food is delicious but a pain to eat?

Pomegranate.

5. What obstacles would be included in the World’s most amazing obstacle course?

I have seen a number of obstacle course competition shows and have run through a few myself in my army days, so I speak with some knowledge. Remember that board game with a table board game-sized obstacles that had to be negotiated with a ping pong ball blown to float in the air by a hand-held blower to negotiate the course? That is, instead of a ping pong, it is a human, and air flow is provided by a drone.

1. Those who were in a gang, what’s the most f-ed up thing you’ve seen?

While a member of the “He-Man Woman Hater Gang, Buckwheat showed up at the clubhouse wearing full drag. None of us were ready for that.

2. What was it that put you in solitary while in lock up?

I started saying a lot of really mean things about Stephen Miller.

3. Why did you deserve that beat down?

I kept insisting on removing the canned green peas from my bowl of Grandma’s beef stew.

4. What happened that forced you to flee the country?

I was caught cheating while playing the all-in game of Risk.

5. You can tell me, I won’t share – how did you embezzle that vast fortune, and where is the money now?

I amassed my vast fortune by taking out tiny ads in the back of newspapers and magazines and flipping all that dough in a collection of rare coffee mugs.

1. What jobs are disappearing because of AI, but no one seems to notice?

I work in call center management, and the most significant AI push right now is for the Quality Assurance team, which listens to calls and scores them to ensure consistent service. Most of that work is now being handled by AI bots to monitor and score. We will have to re-purpose about 12 employees as they are no longer needed.

2. How do you deal with a chronically negative person?

Bluetooth headphones.

3. What was your first long-distance drive?

We drove from Stuttgart to London on aquick run over a three-day weekend while in the army.

4. What’s a small thing that instantly makes your day better?

A freshly roasted and brewed cup of coffee from the French press.

5. What small thing can just ruin your day?

Breakfast eggs when the yolk got broken in the skillet.

1. What’s your biggest “secret” tech you use all the time?

I run Linux Mint on my laptop – I don’t have to pay for access or upgrades, and it is incredibly easy to customize it. It runs all the modern web browsers and has lots of office software and music/video player options. Using Windows 11 at work is just so painful.

2. What is your best “analog” hack you still employ

Handwriting in my journal with just an ink pen. I find it easier to get my thoughts down on paper when entering into the “analog” journal instead of typing it into some app or document. More formal writing I prefer the keyboard/laptop but for those basic seeds and random thoughts my brain needs the time it takes to get it down in my notebook first.

3. What tradition from your family or culture do you still keep alive?

The parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles have all passed, but some kitchen traditions still exist. Cooking some dishes just exactly the way my mother would. Keeping the kitchen knives sharp, the way my father would.

4. What’s the coolest toy you ever received as a kid?

I was probably nine or ten and got this really cool action figure, “rescue airplane”Big Jim Sky Commander airplane, to play with my Big Jim action toys. A few years later, we got an Atari console under the Christmas tree. Childhood was fun.

5. What’s something you let go of that made your life noticeably better?

When my car was stolen, I decided to switch to a bicycle. I took some of the insurance money and bought a nice e-bike, and in the spring through the fall, I try to ride into the office three days a week. When I need a vehicle for something big, I borrow my sister’s truck or use a ride-sharing service.