The Friday Five is about food… glorious FOOD!

1. What is the most adventurous food you’ve ever tried?
When I first was out of college teaching high school, one of the teachers always put together an “exotics” meal. There was squid, octopus, etc. I’d say that was the most adventurous food I’ve ever tried.

2. What is the most adventurous food you’d be willing to try?
Any more, I know what I like and if I don’t know it I’ll try it. There isn’t too much I wouldn’t try.

3. Would you have a problem eating dog meat and why or why not?
That may have happened, because of some of the Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants I’ve eaten.

4. For the most part, do you consider your diet to be balanced?
Yes. I eat from the four main food groups: Sugar, Salt, Fat and Cholesterol!

5. Which is more appealing- being a vegetarian for the rest of your life or being a strict carnivore for the rest of your life?
It would be more appealing for me to become a strict carnivore. Hey, I live in Iowa. Our veggie burgers here are 1/3 pound hamburgers that include lettuce, pickles and tomatoes.

I wanna fill out my Friday Five each week!

1. What did you want to be when you grew up?
Depends upon the time frame. For a while I wanted to be a cowboy, a fireman, a detective, a scientist, a pro baseball player and a pro basketball player. None of them came to be, though.

2. Did you follow through? If not, what happened?
Well, for each one I grew out of it. I gave up the last one (pro basketball player) when I was 14. I ended up going to college and becoming a teacher and coach. Later, I left that and went into tech.

3. Is your life turning out the way you thought it would when you were a kid? If not, is it better or worse?
It is not turning out as I thought it would then. If it was I’d be riding the range or putting out fires. I think it’s better now. I’ve got a great wife and family and THAT’S what really matters.

4. Paradoxes aside, if you could time-travel back to when you were 10 years old, what would you tell your 10-year-old self?
Stand up straight - don’t pick your nose - get used to buzz haircuts.

5. Do you think the child you were, would like the adult you’ve become?
I’d like to think so. We had an “old” guy in the neighborhood who was kind of a crotchety coot and we all made fun of him. I’m definitley NOT like that guy.

The Friday Five is about superheroes and me… well, of course ME!

Who is your favourite superhero?
I’ve always liked Batman and Spiderman. Batman because he doesn’t have any super powers - with him it’s all about training and toys. Spiderman I’ve always liked because when he’s not Spiderman, he’s Peter Parker and he’s pretty much a science geek. That’s only one step away from a computer geek like me!

If you were a superhero, which one would you be?
Probably Batman, although the alter-ego of Bruce Wayne I couldn’t do. No, I don’t have millions of dollars.

Justice League or Injustice League?
Justice League. I want to battle for truth, justice and the American Way.

Which supervillain would you be?
Well, probably Lex Luthor. He was this super-intelligent opponent of Superman who still managed to screw things up. While I’m not really brainy, I do manage to screw a lot of things up.

If you could have superpowers, what would they be?
Like Superman, the ability to fly is pretty cool but you’d have to have super strength to go with it. No sense in being able to go “faster than a speeding bullet” if you run in to something (like a bee swarm or a tree branch) and you aren’t strong enough to survive it.

This week’s Friday Five is about preferences. Here we go…

1. What do you do for fun?
For fun, I play basketball, play softball, tweak computers, visit with friends and family, and (of course) EAT!!

2. Is there a person from your past you would like to talk to again, even if it would be a potentially painful conversation?
Yeah, I’d like to talk with Les. I haven’t seen him for over 15 years. It would be nice to see him again and catch up.

3. What is your favorite comfort food?
Ice cream. Nearly any kind, but I do prefer chocolate.

4. What is your preferred form of self-expression? (Do you dance; or express yourself through music, conversation, etc.)
Conversation. Maybe even this blog or email. I don’t necessarily write well, but I write better than I speak. And I know for a fact you can’t call what I do dancing.

5. You just received $5000; what do you spend it on?
A vacation for KC, the kids and I. The five of us would go to someplace warm and hang out on the beach. KC, J and Breezomatic could go scuba diving. ZDog and I could hang out on the beach. (If it was more I’d invite my brothers and their families for the same kind of thing.)

It’s time for the Friday Five.

1) What is your favorite noise to hear?
It sounds kind of weird, but the simple sound of KC breathing while lying next to me in the morning. It is a very comforting sound and it means I’ve been given another day.

2) If you could live in any era of time, what would you choose and why?
I like living in the now. Now is the greatest time for me to be a live.

3) You just found $50 while cleaning your house. Where do you decide to spend it?
KC and I will go out to dinner some place. She prefers Olive Garden, I prefer Biaggi’s. Either way we get a great meal out of the deal.

4) What magazines to you subscribe to/read on a normal basis?
None in print. On line I regularly read all the Tech News fed to Yahoo!. I also regularly read Lockergnome, Jake Lundington and Brian Livingston.

5) If you could witness any event in history, but not change anything about it, what would you choose and why?
I’d like to witness either the birth of Christ or the crucifixion. I’d record it as proof. I believe these events happened, but there are many who scoff at the idea and call Christianity a myth.

Interesting, kind of meandering Friday Five this week…

1. If you had all the money in the world and could choose to own anything, what you would get and why?
I’d get my own island in the Pacific; away from the coast but about the latitude of Mexico. Of course, I’d have to get a plane to fly there, a boat to trip around the island and a house built on the island. That’s what I’d REALLY like to have, though.

2. If you were to do something that scares you, what would it be?
If something scares me, really deep-down scares me, I am not going to do it.

3. What was your first pet?
A wonderful black labrador retriever called Midnight.

4. What’s the farthest you’ve traveled?
Not sure. Which is farther from Chicago: Riviera Maya, San Diego, New York or Tampa? Been to all these places.

5. If you were a season, which one would you be and why?
I’d be autumn. I love it. What could be better: baseball World Series, football in full swing, basketball in pre-season, warm days, cool nights and wondrous colors.

Extra one: If you were a song, which one would you be and why?
Not really sure. I don’t know if one song can encompass it. It would have to be a LONG song because I’m so old, right?

Friday - Friday Five - All about autumn (my theme was just in time!) - here we go.

1. What do you like or dislike about autumn?
What’s not to like? The leaves turning to red/gold/brown to make a wonderful collage of earth tones. The weather gets a little cooler so it isn’t so hot during the day and that the evenings get nice and cool for good sleeping weather. It’s football season, which means school spirit and tailgating. I repeat, what’s not to like?

2. Have you raked leaves into a pile just to jump in them?
Did it a lot when I was a kid. I did it with my kids when they were young. I don’t rake leaves any more - the willows in the back yard are the only trees I’ve got and their leaves are mowed under.

3. Have you ever carved a pumpkin and how did it turn out?
I still carve one pretty much every year. They don’t turn out great, (I’m not really artistic) but they turn out well enough.

4. Have you ever eaten anything made from pumpkins other than pie?
Of course. Pumpkin bread, pumpkin cake, pumpkin bars, pumpkin malts (home meade, of course). My favorite (after pumpkin pie with LOTS of Cool Whip) is pumpkin bread - without nuts is better but it works with nuts too.

5. Where is a good spot to see the leaves change color where you live?
Pretty much anywhere. There is a state highway that runs along the Mississippi River to the Quad Cities that has a view that is absolutely breathtaking. We can go south towads Navoo and it’s just as stunning there as well.

Lame reference to the Foo Fighters, right? Anyway, the Friday Five this week is about superheroes.

1. Who is your favorite superhero?
I’m not sure. Bluntman?! Nah. Probably Batman. He was just an ordinary Joe with a lot of gizmoes and some serious training.

2. If you could have any superpower what would it be?
The ability to fly would be nice, but I’d want that with super strength so you don’t get hurt when you go off course. Active telepathy would be really nice - you know: move things, read others’ thoughts, control others’ minds, create illusions.

3. What would your super outfit look like?
(Edna Mode voice on) NO CAPES! (Edna Mode voice off) I probably wouldn’t use tights as no one needs to laugh that hard. Mr. Incredible looked better in his tights before the training.

4. What would your super villain/nemesis be like?
He’d look like one of the guys from Average Joe’s in the movie Dodgeball. I don’t know if I could handle a real super villian.

5. What would your catch phrase/calling card be?
Of course it isn’t FAIR that you’re not a super! Who lied and told you life would EVER be fair?

The Friday Five is all about my blog and my blogging; and why not? My blog is about me, right?

1. How long have you had your blog?
My first entry was posted November 5, 2002. It’s nearly three years old!?!

2. What do you consider to be the main purpose of your blog?
Originally it was to improve my writing skills for professional and technical documents. Then, when I switched to WordPress, I did it to help with my understanding of PHP and integration with MySQL. And of course all along I’ve done it because it is fun.

3. If you could change something about your personal blogging style, what would it be?
I don’t know. Maybe be more forceful. I don’t necessarily try to make any cyber-enemies. And I definitely don’t want what happened to these guys to happen to me (or any other bloggers out there)

4. What are your criteria for adding someone to your friends list/blog roll?
A cool design helps, but the most important criteria for me is that they are interesting in some way. I don’t want links in my blogroll of boring blogs.

5. Name one thing that you’ve never before written about in your blog.
My sex life. And I probably won’t write about that either.

How about that? The Friday Five this week is about computers!!! My favorite subject!! (Other than sex!)

1. What kind of computer do you have? (Mac, iBook, Dell, etc.)
I have a computer I put together. Never have bought an entire computer. My specs are: AMD Sempron 2800+ CPU, 512 Mb DDR RAM, 160 Gb hard drive, SoundBlaster Live!, GeForce FX5200 128 Mb video card, DVD ROM, DVD Writer, 20-in-1 Card reader. (These are just in the tower). KC has an AMD Athlon 1400 CPU, 384 Mb RAM, 40 Gb hard drive, nVIDIA 16 Mb TNT video card, CD ROM, CD Writer. Yeah, I built hers from scratch too; much of it used to be my PC.

2. How old is it? Are you happy with it?
I got the most recent parts this summer. Yeah, I’m pretty happy with it.

3. How many computers are in your household? (at home if you are away at school)
Including Breezomatic’s PC (which she has at college), right now I have 5. Of course, only 3 are in working order at the present time.

4. What are your favorite games/timewasters on your computer?
Most of my “wasted time” is done by browsing the web. I do play Spider Solitaire, but it’s usually the web for me. It’s far more interesting.

5. If money were no object, what kind of computer would you like to have?
AMD Athlon64 (the fastest available), at least one gig of DDR RAM (again, the fastest available), at least a 200 Mb hard drive (maybe larger), the latest nVIDIA GeForce video card with at least 256 Mb RAM on board, a TV Tuner card interfaced with the video card, SoundBlaster Audigy, dual DVD writers, yeah, that’s the ticket.

This week, the Friday Five is kind of a mish-mash without a central theme. Here we go.

Do you have a dream you will always strive to achieve until your dying day?
To make KC happy. I think I’ve kind of fallen into the old comedian’s line: “Yeah, I disappointed a LOT of women when I got married… now that I am married I can concentrate on disappointing just one.” I hope not to live down to that.

Do you believe in fate or free will, or something else?
I believe in free will. I believe God gives us a choice; we don’t always realize that we have a choice, but we do. As it says in the Rush song Free Will: “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”

Marilyn Monroe. Conspiracy or tragic accident?
Tragic accident. Just because JFK couldn’t keep it in his pants (for the umpteenth time in his married life) doesn’t make it a conspiracy.

Favourite childhood sweets/candy?
I have always liked chocolate. I got a sweet tooth early in life as my grandparents ran a bakery and we got a lot of the “day-old” products; still good, but not display-case pretty.

Favourite cocktail (alcoholic or virgin) and it’s ingredients?
I’m not much on cocktails, alcoholic or otherwise. Just gimme a beer, preferably a dark beer.

Imagine… a Friday Five about technology… just imagine!

1. Who is your mobile phone provider, and how many minutes are in your plan?
At work (I usually use my work cell phone) we use Verizon. We have over 20,000 minutes shared among all the users here. At home (I don’t have a personal cell phone, but KC and Breezomatic do) we use US Cellular and have something like 400 minutes per month (with free incoming calls).

2. What program do you primarily use for instant messaging?
Gaim. It does all the protocols: ICQ, AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Jabber, etc. It’s also got a pretty small footprint. I have friends on ICQ, Yahoo and MSN and didn’t want to have multiple IM’s running.

3. Who do you send and receive text messages from most?
My friend Bob. Of course, it has been a while since I’ve gotten any.

4. What area code do you live in?
563 (Although it used to be 319, even though we didn’t move.)

5. What year did you first get an e-mail address and do you still use it?
I got my first email address in 1996 with Net@ddress. It had a “@usa.net” domain. I don’t use it any more because they began to charge, even though they had said it would be a free lifetime email address!! That’s when I switched to Yahoo. I’ve been using Yahoo ever since. Yeah, I’ve added a number of others (including at least one on this site!) but I still use my original Yahoo email address for a lot of things.