Interview

I submitted to an interview from this person who was assisted by this person.  The rules of this game are simple.  I linked back to her, and if you want me to ask you five questions, then just ask. Then you post the answers and you link to this post. It makes a superb post when you got nothing else.

The questions:

1) What do you want to be when you grow up?

More awesome than I am now.  It is hard to imagine, but I see the glittering hope of a future impossibly bright and the gods walking away from their forge fires in absolute awe of what I will become.  Then I will buy one more rock hammer and the world will explode with disbelief at how unbelievably great I am.

That and a racecar driver.

2) What are 1 or 2 defining moments in your life?

I honestly don’t believe in defining moments, so I’m not sure. I gave this one a lot of thought and I can’t think of any singular occurrences. They were all part of larger systems of experience.

Ok, here is one:

We were out hunting with some family from the old church. I may have been about six. I think I was in kindergarten. Anyway, hunting was something we all took very serious. The economy was such in that part of Colorado that not getting a kill in the fall meant no meat in the spring. So, it was a whole family thing. The kids who were too young to carry rifles were set to go down into this canyon around the Delores River valley south of Dove Creek and walk the arroyo flushing out game so the men and older boys could shoot them from the rim. This was pretty wild country and there was sign of bear and cougar all over. I mentioned to my dad that I was worried about wild cats. I asked him what I should do if a mountain lion came after me. With some great solemnity he handed me his bone hatchet and it was heavy and covered in blood from hunts before I was even born.

He patted my head and said in all seriousness, “If you don’t fight back, you ain’t my son.”

Then he set me off into the sage and cedar.

What that defines, I don’t know.

3) How would you be different if you didn’t join the military and have the experience?

A. I would be in jail. I needed to get as far out of town as possible, and in a hurry.

B. Every time I feel like not doing something and have some excuse, like being sick or being hurt, I hear my RDC (the equivalent of a drill sergeant), who happened to look a lot like Chris Farley on steroids and sounded like he drank an entire bottle of whiskey every night, saying, “Bullshit, you’re just not motivated. I have an idea, sweetie sugartits, how about you punch yourself in the GOTdamn ovaries and knock off your sissy lala bullshit!”

So, I guess in short, I would have no idea what the human body and human mind is capable of, good or bad. Also, I would not have been married, divorced, awarded, reprimanded, spent any time in executive officer inquiries, had immorally awesome times with genetically diverse and very eager women in countries I had never heard of before, felt the thrill of killing, the guilt of the same, the absolute rage at authority, or the peace of the Straits of Hormuz.

I guess I don’t know how to answer the question.

4) Why is Dexter Colt your fucking idol?

Because he manages to be a bigger dickhead, a more miserable loudmouth, and a less lovable motherfucker with every post but he’s got a cyber harem full of hot women that will rally in a few seconds into a massive estrogen army such as the world has never seen.

That and he is actually a gold plated cow.

5) What is your favourite rock and why? –> my lame ass question

That is not a lame question. It’s just hard to answer.

I would say my favorite rocks are the ones that tell the best stories. I like the precambrian basement rocks, mostly gneisses and such, that you find in the Colorado Plateau because they tell the story of an old island arc colliding with Laurentia. I like the ultramylonitic rocks of Death Valley because they tell a story of a continent torn apart. I like the microquakes of the moho because they tell the story of olivines compressing into smaller solids proving Plato right about those platonic solids. I like the salt collapse structures of Paradox. But you know, the volcanic necks and sills of Shiprock, New Mexico, and the Abajos, and Lizardhead have played a large part in my life. Fuck, I don’t know.

I guess if I had to have a favorite, I would say the eolian sandstones of the Western US. Specifically the Entrada formation. It’s the one that forms most of the arches and the jointed rocks that make the Desert Southwest so ethereal.  But then there are the laccoliths of Monument Valley.  This question is unfair.  I don’t ask you to name a favorite shoe.

And I think you spelled ‘favorite” wrong.