If you've not read Greg's blog recently, he's got a new meme to propagate: a five-question "interview" based on leaving a comment of interest with the interviewer. So the following is my interview based on questions provided by Greg. Should you care to be interviewed by me, leave a comment.

1. Why so long learning to drive?

The simple answer is inertia. I took the driver's test my senior year in high school, didn't pass, and drifted into other things before leaving for BU. It helped that most of my friends were a year or two older (and got their licences as early as possible), and that my hometown is small enough that you can get pretty much anywhere you need to go by walking or bike. Throw in 10 years or so of living in Boston, and there you have it.

But I have to admit I never really had the seemingly universal desire of all teens to get my licence. Even now, I think I'd be OK with not having a licence. The wife is certainly glad I have it.

2. Did you ever play an instrument? If not, what do you think would be fun to take up?

I was in the sixth grade bell choir, whose members were supposedly those who scored the highest on a musical aptitude test. I think I just test well. In any case, I won't say that I really learned how to play the bells, as our music teacher would circle the notes for us. It was really an exercise in repeatedly counting to four.

At BU I took one semester of piano. The teacher was a grad student who was fulfilling some sort of requirement, and thus not really into the teaching part. We spent three months playing and never used the black keys! This really screwed me when I took the second semester class, which was full of music majors.

From all of the RA trainings I've developed some mad skillz on the kazoo, too.

3. Within the past few years you got back into the habit of going to mass. What prompted that?

To say that I got back into the habit suggests that I had a habit to start. Church attendance in my family was never compulsory, and for many years it was mostly related to attending CCD before or after mass. As we got older I went less frequently, pretty much only on holidays or the more notable obligatory days around Lent.

What got me into the habit was the wife, who was at least a semi-regular attendee at Marsh when she was a free range Protestant. As she was deciding to take the papal plunge we moved up to Brighton (the summer of 2001) and started going to St. Ignatius (which is about the only part of the BC campus I'll speak positively about; they let you stand during communion!).

I do find that I enjoy going, and find our current parish has the best sense of community of any that I've been in. Though it's odd being a young(er) couple without kids, as the two main buy-ins seem to be having kids in the parish school or being elderly.

4. During an an average workday, what random thought about Sarah will pop into your head and make you smile?

It's usually the thought I have at about 4 pm when I think to myself that she's going to call, and she almost always does. Like a lot of couples we talk at least once during the work day, and the late afternoon calls are faves as it means we'll be together shortly... unless she's calling to say she's working late.

Other than that, if I read something online about a shared interest and I hear her voice in my head. That makes me laugh, especially when I share the item with her later and her actual response matches the one I came up with!

5. Sadly, I never met your folks. Which of their good/bad traits do you most see in yourself?

Hmm, this is a toughie. I would say that from both of my parents I took a love of reading, as both were regular readers. I'd also say that they both influenced my sense of humor, with my mom providing the prankish side and my dad the drier humor that I more often use. I'd also attribute my interest in sports to them, as both were fairly athletic as kids, and were very supportive of us when we played. This then extended into spectating, and you can thank my dad for planting the seed of BC disdain. You can also thank(?) him for my Notre Dame fandom. Both of them were pretty solidly Democrats, so you can put my left-of-centrism here, too (though my dad held a Neanderthalic position on immigration, which I don't share).

On the less positive side, neither of my parents were particularly great patients, and I take a similar tack, though not to the degree that either of them did. I also think I've taken after my dad in following an easier path, work-wise. Not that the current job isn't challenging, but like my dad I'm not looking out for a job that'll call for a ton of extra hours (which is kind of ironic, given the years spent working in the sometimes all-consuming world of residence life). The wife also likes to reference a family penchant for pack-ratism, to which I'll plead no contest. She also thinks the Coen side has some tendency for going a little over-ripe in the melon, to which I'm going to ask for a continuance.