Bigwhoop interview questions Just as a short introduction, I'm doing this because I thought it might be neat if the bigwhoop folks knew more about each other, since there are a good number of people that have weblogs here that I personally don't know almost anything about, and I'm guessing the same thing applies to pretty much all of us. Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions. ------------------------------------------------------------------- I guess I'll start with the basics: ------------------------------------------------------------------- How old are you? 22 and a half. Where did you grow up? Mostly in Broadmoor, though we did move out to Ellerbe in high school. These are neighborhoods in Shreveport, Louisiana. Where are you living now? Somewhere in the back of the Manoa valley on the island of Oahu. Which city would you rather live in right now: the one where you grew up or the one you're in today? The one I grew up in. Because that's where my friends are. I am just barely starting to make friends here in Honolulu and its slow going. The city I would *most* like to live in is Austin (where I also still have friends) because it's close enough to family and friends that I can see them as often as I like. Plus they have Shiner there. Who do you work for and what do you do for them? The State of Hawaii, and I do little or nothing for them. I TA some classes for UH-Manoa, but that's about it; I guess that's why I'm paid so little. Do you enjoy doing that sort of thing? I don't like taking classes and being a TA is pretty boring, so I guess not. But then again this is just the first part of a Five Year Plan. This is only my first year in the astronomy Ph.D. program. This experience should as a whole be enjoyable, or at least enable me to do more enjoyable things. What would you rather do, if you didn't have to worry about money? I have to worry about money? I guess I'd take my chances in Nashville. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Moving on to bigwhoop-related issues: ------------------------------------------------------------------- What was the main reason you joined bigwhoop.org? Constant pressure from Shane Bussmann and Andy Morrison. Any particular reason you chose the name 'Observer's Blog'? At first it was The Observer's Log (like something an astronomer might write), then I saw the obvious pun. The rest is history. What do you hope to get out of your weblog yourself? A boost to my self-esteem with every unexpected comment. A unique contribution to the information contained in the Superhighway of Information. Indirect storage of my thoughts and opinions over time. Is it going the way you had hoped initially? Well, since I didn't really have any expectations, yes. I just assumed you and Andy knew what you were talking about. Having a blog is fun, rewarding, and educational. Thumbs up. What do you hope others will get out of it? Entertainment. How many of the other people with weblogs on bigwhoop have you met? Three: You, Eric Furst, and Andy Morrison. How often do you read the various bigwhoop blogs? I'm working on maintaining a solid once every other day average for Shane, Andy, Matt, Eric, Bess, and Lara Hanson. If I am able to maintain this my first expansion will be to Ae, then "Sps," and then others. For most of my blog's existence I read the other blogs maybe once a week and only typically Eric's, Andy's, and yours. Do you have any Bigwhoop related plans for the future? Yes. Either/both Flagstaff Reunion or/and Pilgrimage to Bigwhoop Headquarters. Bigwhoop Headquarters as I understand it is located in New York City, New York. Specifically Matt Jankowski's apartment. It is a quest I will almost certainly one day make, the only question is will my Flagstaff brethren be there? (Let's not forget Kris Barkume either.) ------------------------------------------------------------------- Hobbies and stuff: ------------------------------------------------------------------- What sort of side projects are you working on that aren't part of your full time job or bigwhoop? I recently made huge developments in digitally storing on hard disk my moderately large CD collection (~500 discs). The largest obstacle was data corruption on the CDs themselves. I recently acheieved Mp3 Ascendency. I remember you talking about needing something to get addicted to. How is that worthy endeavor going? So far there are still some episodes of Daria left that I haven't seen. It's like collecting trading cards (a once big time hobby of mine) in that you open a pack of cards and you could get cards you already have or you could get new ones. You have to sample many packs of randomly distributed cards before you have the entire set. Due to a combination of sight unseen Daria episodes still being available and the stress-meter being reset by Winter Break I have not felt the need to acquire any new addictions lately. Any other hobbies you'd like to mention (poker, fantasy baseball, etc.)? I played tons of poker while I was in Shreveport for break, and for the most part lost money. But in Honolulu I have almost no hobbies. I watch ~20 hours of MTV/VH1/MTV2/VH1 Classic/Fuse/CMT/GAC per week. I also love watching PBS, but I usually miss the good programming. Friday nights are awesome though if I can catch it. When I lived in Austin, I kept close tabs on the live/local music scene there. I attended many a weekday and weekend show, but Honolulu has not been so accomodating to that interest. Sounds like you watch a lot of TV, do you read anything? No, not really. I used to read science fiction novels, but I've not picked one up in a while. Lately any reading I do is non-fiction: religious history, political, or science. I am very interested in current American social topics actually like race, gender, and class if anyone knows of a good book on one of those subjects. Which hobby or sport activity would you have the hardest time giving up? I already had to give up live music by moving to Honolulu. So you don't play any sports? Not really. I play volleyball once a week typically, but is that really a sport? I enjoy ultimate, but haven't had anyone to play with that's not hardcore in like three years. I was not encouraged in sports as a child, sort of like that girl in Bend it Like Beckham. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Big Issues: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Please describe your obsession (or lack thereof, if you so believe) with girl bands. It was once proposed that this be the subject of a Great Debate between Andy Morrison and me. I think it's definitely inaccurate to say that I prefer "girl bands" exclusively, and as I recall the *actual* issue is not with girl bands but rather female artists. Through much of high school and college my favorite band was The Cure, though I also would have included in my top tier of artists Tori Amos, Ani DiFranco, and Depeche Mode to name a few. For the most part, the male artists/bands are those that I grew up listening to from my father's CD collection, which includes "alternative" artists from the 80's and 90's as well as classic albums like Led Zeppelin and some fairly obscure bizarre music I never really got into. The artists I discovered that I liked during high school and college may have been largely female as mentioned before, but such a list would certainly be incomplete without bands like The Pixies, The Smiths, and Ben Harper (again only naming a few). The counter-accusation is then that I like female artists because they're female and the male bands because they're actually good. Well if you don't think Patty Griffin is an amazing songwriter, or that Sleater-Kinney is an excellent rock band, or that Lauryn Hill is a prophetic songtress, then I think you must be biased against female artists. "Denver is the Dallas of the west http://dupuy.bigwhoop.org/archives/002038.html." I view this statement as a brief glimpse of the underworkings of your thought process. Explain it, if you can. I like the way you phrase that. I am not convinced that a person can understand the way they understand things, but I'll give it a try. I'm not sure if my statement is analogy or stereotype, because now that I think about it stereotype is probably just a collection of analogies between your relationship with one individual you know and your relationship with many individuals you don't know. In which case analogy/stereotype is just an application of inductive reasoning: applying a situation you know well to any other given situation with similar characteristics. I had certain facts about the City of Denver and a certain qualitative impression, and those facts and feelings matched almost exactly those I had for Dallas. I therefore confidently claimed Denver is just like Dallas except that it's in the Western U.S. (with no other Western cities I know of matching Dallas' qualities so well). What made you decide to pursue a career in astronomy? At what age did science begin to seem like a good way to go with your life? Babes, 17. Really Shane, is this as big of an issue as the previous topics? I don't even care about the answer to this question, so I doubt others do. Furthermore, I don't even know the answer, really. You have one to a few sentences to give one piece of advice to people you think might be reading this. What do you have to say? I wish I could have done this months ago because I've completely lost my train of thought from when I was concocting my own original answers to interview questions. You are getting watered down answers, but that's okay because no interview could ever crack this case. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Anything else you'd like to add? Feel free to add in your own questions and answers if you'd like as well. Thanks again for taking the time. -Shane