- What was that dream career you had as a middle schooler?
By middle school, almost every subject I studied, hobby I explored, or book I discovered led me to change my career path. By eighth grade, I was going to be a professional saxophone player.
2,. What’s something everyone pretends to understand, but most people don’t?
Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.
- On Ted Lasso, the catch phrase is “Football is Life!” What is an appropriate catch phrase for your life?
Everybody lies.
- Today would have been my father’s 88th birthday. Are birthdays important to you?
They used to be a huge thing. The birthday falls around the Memorial Day weekend, and as a kid, there were events, parades, and rodeos that accompanied the event. As a young adult, I turned the holiday into a big binge event. This year was just meh, so instead, I took a long weekend over Mother’s Day to attend a wedding and visit my stepdad. Gosh – I may be maturing over age.
- When did it hit you that you were more privileged than you thought?
Traffic stops. As a college-educated white male in my early 60s, I get a pass from law enforcement, at least for the petty stuff.
1) Marine biologist. Watching the Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau looked like the perfect life.
2) National debt versus deficit. There’s also a lot of people in the US that don’t, at all, understand democracy, constitutional republic and how they are essentially the same thing.
3) It is what it is.
4) They are important, but now other people’s birthdays are more important.
5) Truly understanding and anchoring in my daily life what white privilege is and no matter how progressive, accepting or open-minded I think I am, I am only able to be those things unfettered because I am a white male.
1. By middle school I was utterly lost and had no concrete ideas of the future. All I knew was that my every activity was geared towards getting into and graduating from college. So I guess my answer would be “college graduate”.
2. The illusion of how money moves. People check their accounts at midnight on payday thinking that their money has magically arrived. In all actuality the funds may show up in the bank as many as three days later.
3. I guess there’s a reason for all of this?
4. Not at all. As I child I always looked forward to a fancy cake from the bakery (thanks Grandpa!) but I usually found the day to somehow be both boring and embarrassing (drawing unnecessary attention to oneself).
5. Working internationally for so long, I quickly learned that the US is the world’s bully, and ergo I was treated with a bit more deference than needed simply by being American.
#2
I don’t pretend to get bitcoin or block chain or crypto. Don’t care. Everyone values and can’t stop telling you how anonymous it is.
When you get robbed, and you will. Start with the mount Gox story. Anyhow, when you get robbed, how do get or report it gone? Who do you call? How do you prove it’s yours?
And if you are able to file a claim and prove it’s yours, it wasn’t anonymous.
For a more detailed explanation, try the president. He has a bunch of bitcoin nfts of him punching eagles or something. I bet he could totally break down exactly how the block chain works, and protects us all.