A Smart Interview

So, smarty posted an interview blog recently. In response I asked to be interviewed. (Yes, even though I have promised about 4 other blogs I have not yet gotten to.) Here are her questions and my attempts at some answers:

1. If you had an opportunity to start a new career and money wasn’t at all a consideration (either in terms of the money needed to train for it, or the amount of income that you need), what would it be?

A racer, of course! Unfortunately, that would result in a huge outflow of money, but if money were no object....

Oh, you want a more practical answer? I might like to do one of the following:

• Work on a car show (a la "Top Gear") -- okay, still not too practical
  
• Write for a car magazine
• Run a pet hotel of sorts
• Assist people that need help managing their money/budgets

2. If you could take a dream getaway, where would you choose to spend a couple weeks?

That's tough. Either:

• Italy, starting with Tuscany, and focused on wine, women and food
• Touring and racing at race tracks around the country, hitting at least Road America and Road Atlanta.

3. Do you eat to live, or live to eat?

Depends. If I am in Italy, I will live to eat. If I am in La Junta, CO, I will eat to live. :) I really do appreciate good food and good wine, so I generally live to eat (and drink and flirt).

4. List your five favorite books/movies/CD’s (it can be any mix of those three categories)

I am not so good with the favorites thing. I rarely watch movies or read books more than once because I don't have much time, and there is so much out there. Five is a very short list, so tell you what, let me just do books, but I will put them in categories. (Oh, and you may or may not recall that I didn't really start reading books until the 11th grade, so I still read VERY slowly and I don't have the same literary coverage as most others do.)

• Best Intellectual Book: Godel, Escher, Bach: The Eternal Golden Braid (Douglas R. Hofstadter)
• This book is the most intense form of mental masturbation I have ever experienced. And I mean that in a good way. It is not, however, an easy read. Oh, and Hofstadter is a bit of an arrogant jerk.
  
• Best Comic Collection: Some Calvin and Hobbes collection (Bill Watterson)
• I don't know which is best (probably one of the early ones), but Watterson is a genius.
  
• Best Recent Novel: The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
• Probably everyone has read this recently. If you have not, you really should.
  
• Best Satiric/Humorous Novel: Something from Kurt Vonnegut or Mark Twain
• Okay, I am cheating here. If I have to pick just one book from these 2 masters, it would probably be Cat's Cradle (Kurt Vonnegut)
  
• Best Book of Philosophical Inquiry: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values (Robert M. Pirsig)
• We started with a mental masturbation book, so let's end with one, too. Of course, it's an entirely different form of masturbation.
  

5. Tell me about #129. What kind of car is it?

My race car is a 2.0L 1967 Porsche 911. It weighs about 2100 pounds (wet). The engine case, displacement, suspension and gearbox are basically stock 1967 parts. The heads are ported, the cam is aggressive, the compression ratio has been raised to 12:1 and the I run it up to 8000 RPM. The result is a 1967 engine significantly hotter and quicker than stock, but it is still just a little 2.0L power plant. It has to do battle with Mustangs, Camaros and the like with tires that are twice as wide and displacement that is 2-3 times the 2.0L limit I have. It's really a pretty nice little car and stands up reasonably to much of the competition.