Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Q & A with David M

What’s your family situation?
I am a husband to my wife and a dad to my three young kids.

Where do you live?

In the suburbs of New York.

Have you always lived in the New York area?
No. I have lived in (alphabetically) France, Japan, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the U.S.; but mostly the U.S. I’ve lived or spent substantive time in Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee and Wisconsin; but mostly New York. My roots for the past several generations are in New York and Tennessee. Before that, mostly Germany with some England and a bit of Ireland for good measure.

That’s a lot of countries. How are your language skills?
My English is practically fluent.

Are you a fourth generation Jewish American Republican?
Yes, I am a fourth generation Jewish American Republican. What an odd question.

What do you do for a living?
I run a small management consulting business for healthcare organizations. I also analyze healthcare organizations for investors.

What about sports?
My sports career peaked in high school. Or perhaps it was when I captained my class to a third-grade newcombe team victory.

What are your musical abilities?
I cannot carry a tune. But that does not stop me from trying. One score and seven years ago I gave the sax a shot. Wasn’t very successful. In recent years I’ve listened to a lot of Raffi. And I help out a music education non-profit, but not as much as I should.

I can whistle by cupping my two hands into a ball and blowing in through the thumbs. I cannot whistle by sticking two fingers into the sides of my mouth. Nor can I raise one eyebrow at a time.

Do you have any hidden talents?
I am adept at flipping a canoe upside-down onto my shoulders.

Anything else you like doing?
Trying to solve cryptic crossword puzzles. At times I’ll zero in on a random word I see in a newspaper and try in my head to come up with a creative cryptic definition for the word.

Why do you blog?
I’ve given various people various reasons, each of which I suppose has some element of truth:

  • Procrastination
  • Therapy for the writer, since there are no readers
  • An outlet for my ranting so that my wife doesn’t need to suffer through it
  • Vanity
  • At times I’ve got something interesting to say.
Have you ever picked up packages in the Wanegan at gabbercom?
Yes. Indeed, I have. What an odd question, again.

Who were the first bloggers you started reading regularly?
Andrew Sullivan, Glenn Reynolds, Mindles Dreck.

A writer at the Nashville Scene's Pith in the Wind has linked via his name to this blog. Is he you?
No. But he tells me he is a regular reader.

Do you know him?
Know him? I've had lunch with him.

Anything else we should know about you?
If you have any questions, e-mail me. Any e-mail sent to this address will be assumed to be for publication unless you specify otherwise.

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Note: This Q & A entry was written in late 2004 (despite its date stamp) and is occasionally updated without notice.

To return to David M’s main blog, click here.