Five questions

The five questions meme. Here's how it works:

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."

2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.

3. You will update your journal with the answers to the questions (or leave your answers in my comments).

4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Greg interviewed me:

1. What's the most beautiful object in space?

Just one? JUST ONE?!?!?! Alright, there's the pretty blue marble. There's also Rho Ophiuchi, but that technically isn't just one object. But it always comes back to Saturn, for me. Especially with the images that Cassini keeps sending back, Saturn is a constant battle of sunlight and shadow, globes and rings...there's a sense of perspective here that we can't get anywhere else (yet).

2. You've got two weeks, a full tank of gas (and means to refuel), snacks and a credit card. Where you going?

Assuming I need to start from home, I drive north from Phoenix, heading through Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon. I stop for good food in Flagstaff. I then drive north and go through Zion and Bryce National Parks in Utah. Continuing north, I head into Idaho, driving through the Sun Valley area, and continue on to Glacier National Park in Montana. From there, westward to Vancouver. I head south and hit Seattle. Now that I've had a few days of city life, I head out to the Washington coast and then take Pacific Coast Highway all the way down the west coast. I'll take a detour to Powell's, I mean, Portland to restock on books, but otherwise I'll stay on the coast all the way through Oregon and California (stopping off at the Ferry Building in San Francisco) down to Cambria where I'll turn inland because the southern California coast is boring. Time for a quick meal in L.A. with friends before heading back to Phoenix. (My suitcase is calling upon me to fill it. Restless!)

3. Old stand-by: Dinner with any three people, living or dead. Who are they? (And, yes, you can just sit quietly and eavesdrop on the conversation if you want.)

I am obviously well-known by my interviewer, because I would definitely want to be quiet and eavesdrop. This is a hard question, because for the most part, I find ordinary people discussing their daily lives to be the most interesting. Maybe just three people off the street. (The sentimental part of me would invite Dad to have one last meal with Mom because she misses him so much and I'd leave them alone.)

4. You can teach your students one concept and one concept only, but they will completely understand and embrace this concept. What's on the syllabus?

How science is done. So many students want to learn the immutable truth, but science is all about change, a process and not a set of facts. And I would hope that, by the end of the course, I'd never hear the question, "Is that true?", but rather, "How'd we figure that out?"

5. What's one fear you wish you could eradicate from your system?

My biggest fear is of doing the wrong thing. This extends to all parts of my life, and I wish it didn't. It isn't just the big things like where will I move to or what my next life goal will be. I worry about making a bad choice of route to take or dinner I'll cook. We all make bad choices, but I don't want my fears to stop me from making choices at all.