Ok, so this is really long.. and not edited entirely correctly, but I want to get this up.
My wife complains bitterly about the style of this blog – how it’s just pages and pages of text with few, if any pictures or anything to break it up. Considering that most people who read this are add riddled, I can only hope they go into hyperfocus when they get to my site. So, the Q interview. I have to give props to Q for returning this so quickly, unlike Mike, who’s had… oh 6 months now.. and it’s to the point where I refuse to publish his interview even if he were to get around to getting it back to me. Last night, he thought I should replace some of his questions with questions about air hockey… which makes me believe that Mike just doesn’t get it.
So, with this backdrop – I give you Q, who, at this point, is infinitely more awesome than Mike right now – who’s probably out slashing tires on this New Year’s Eve.
So.. I can’t say too much about Q other than he’s the new player and is dedicated to the point where he has his own stinkin’ blog. My interviews are a way to ‘break up the monotony’ as it were… and I’d like to point out that he has no such gimmick on his blog to my knowledge. Oh, and sometimes he gets his facts wrong. You probably still want to come here first for all your Chicagoland air hockey dishing.
Why am I talking such shit? Q’s great.. and I love how he’s answered this interview… I feel like I’ve given him opportunities to let his personality shine through. So, here you go.
1. Let’s say you’re on Survivor. You manage to make it to the final 3. Your strategy to get to the finals was a two part plan. First off, you were fiercely loyal to 2 strong players and you helped vote everyone else off the island. You were basically a follower of these two, and went with any strategy they had in mind. Your other strategy to get to the final 3 was to piss off everyone you voted off, making you appear as a very weak player by the other two, who knew you’d have the worst shot of getting voted on to get the million dollars at the end. By all accounts, not a single person will vote for you… and everyone else thinks the other two are more ‘deserving’ of the money. You have one shot to win over the crowd and give a speech to get them to vote for you. What do you say?
Well, if Family Guy has taught me anything, all I would say would be “Nine Eleven” I’d try to give something classy and inspirational, but that’s not my style. I’d probably go with: “We all have been through an amazing experience here. Alliances have been formed, some broken, backs stabbed, but at this point, you have to look at the game. The three staples of the game are ‘Outwit, Outplay, and Outlast’. For whatever reason, the three of us stand before you as the final three. I could stand here and apologize for my actions against all of you, but it may not be enough. I did what I had to do in order to ensure that I could be standing here right now. This is after all a game and your vote should be for the best player of the game. So I ask you, who played the game the best? These two unsuspecting fools or the predator that was smart enough to fool these two into feeling as though I would not be a threat to them at this moment. I took a risk by acting out you who will now decide upon the outcome of this game. Just know that it was all part of the game, and that I am sorry for any pain I have caused.” or “Vote for me, we’ll split the prize money”
2. Ok smartypants… tell me about material science… what you like about it, what you dislike about it… and what you hope to do once you get your PhD.
This question comes up a lot and it’s kind of funny that a lot of us Material Scientist don’t have the best explanation of what the subject itself it. I’ve worked on my answer for awhile now and just know that if you ask 5 different MSE majors, you may get 5 slightly different answers. So…here goes: I define material science, or a lot of subjects, by what problem/question the science is trying to solve. The “paradigm” of materials science is finding the correlation between a material’s structure, processing, properties, & performance. This is why when you ask a material scientist what they do or what they study you’ll get a plethora of answers. They could a metallurgist, a polymer scientist, a ceramist (which is technically what my undergrad degree is in because the Ceramic Department at Rutgers was in transition to getting accredited as a MSE program). As for what I like about it, I’d say the biggest thing I like about it is the performance end of things/understanding how and why things work. There are a lot of examples where you see real materials in real world applications and it’s just incredible how much science is there. For example, I watched a show on National Geographic channel yesterday that showed Underwriters Laboratories testing bullet resistant plastic with high speed cameras filming. (similar to Time Warp on Discovery, but seemed more sciency than that). The layered polymer sheets acted in a very specific way. The first layer took energy away from the bullet by melting/heat dissipation. The second sheet broke apart the bullet and spread it out through it’s layer. The third layer was undamaged. I missed the intro to know exactly what the materials were, but it’s an example of where the materials properties/structure (e.g. what polymers) & processing (e.g. how the sheets were laminated together) affected the performance (e.g. bullet resistance). As for what I don’t like, that’s tough. My current research is more physical chemistry than material science which is probably why a lot of times I sound less than enthusiastic about it. (well that and just general research frustrations about the direction and/or equipment). The subject of material science itself is fascinating to me, hard to pick out something I don’t like about it. Once I’m done with grad school, to be honest I am going to just look for an R&D job at a company. (job examples of friends who have graduated: R&D Scientist @ Intel in Portland, startup companies in Illinois, Honeywell/UoP, British Petroleum, etc…, Research assistant @ Argonne National Lab, post doctoral positions @ universities, faculty @ university). I had thought way back when that I wanted to go on the faculty track, but I’ve become more and more keen to just getting a job at a good company. (i.e. I need $) As for location….I’ve been out in Illinois for 7 years now, but I’m still a part NJ boy at heart. My wife does love her job out here though and NJ doesn’t have a huge air hockey scene yet so I don’t know for sure where we’ll end up. Being a vet tech, her job is more easily relocatable so it may boil down to wherever my job takes us, but to get me to move somewhere random (and without air hockey) it would have to be one pretty nice offer.
3. Air hockey! Yes.. it’s really awesome that you’re hooked on air hockey. The fact that you called it an ‘addiction’ is eerily similar to my story of air hockey as well. I think it’s awesome that you’re so damn competitive and you’re quickly learning. I don’t want to think of myself as done learning or that I’m not getting better… but I feel like I’ve learned about as much as I can… and now it’s just about executing and refining my game. I don’t think I can just jump in skill by a whole lot (I dunno, maybe… it’s possible)… and I think there will be *some time* in the future when you will win a set against me. When do you think that will be, and what do you think you’ll need to accomplish before you’re able to do so?
Hmm…when do I think I’ll beat you in a set? Minimum: at least 9mo. to a year from now. And one of the limiting factors: the time that we all practice. I think it was in Billy’s interview where he said he used to play 6hrs/day 6 days/week and just that we play 1-2 times a week means that you’ll still be getting better (near the top of the learning curve if you feel you’ve learned as much as you can) and I’m near the bottom of the learning curve still so I’ll be picking up things quickly that you’ve been using for a year now or so I think. There’s a lot to accomplish before that’s possible barring a fluke upset in a full set. While the RWU/cut attack may not be too limiting, I feel like I’m going to need something else to come at you with. This will take some time. (need to perfect the RWU/cut first, then learn and perfect a new combo) The other things like drifts and deception will come along by the time I have that done I think. With just my drifting improved and the RWU/cut perfected, maybe I’d force it to a game 5 or 6, but probably wouldn’t take 4. My biggest hurdle by far is going to be developing my in game mentality during a set. I get flustered easily and lose my cool in sets if I get down early. The same thing used to happen when I played floor hockey goalie but I eventually got to a point where I can take out my frustration early and achieve a Zen like state to get my head back into the game. (1 shot/save at a time, ignoring previous highs and lows, analyzing the current situations more). It’s probably the fast paced game that gets me the most out of my zone. Hopefully I can get this sorted out sooner rather than later.
4. I’ve been working math questions into my interviews because I can’t resist. I have a feeling this will take you about 2 minutes to solve. Here goes: You have eight balls all of the same size… 7 of them weigh the same, and one of them weighs slightly more. How can you find the ball that is heavier by using a balance and only two weighings?
Slightly under 2 minutes. (It’s like racing the guy in the Red Eye on sudokus) I love questions like this. Gets the gears turning. First: weigh 3 of the balls vs. 3 of the balls. Second: If the first was a match, you weigh compare the 2 remaining balls vs. one another and the heavier one will tilt the balance. If the first was not a match, take 2 of the 3 balls that were heavier and weigh them vs. one another. If they match, the one weighed ball is the heavier one. If they don’t match, the heavier one will tilt the balance.
5. Guantanamo Bay: Is it ok to house suspected terrorists there without trial indefinitely? Why/Why not?
I was worried there may be political questions, but I’ll give it a shot…..I don’t believe it is. One of the great things about the U.S. is the freedom we have and the right to due process. While some may argue that the ends could justify the means, it goes against the core values that this country was founded on. The federal court system should be able to charge and try suspected terrorists.
At first, I thought the question was about torturing of subjects and I’ll just throw in my two cents about that. I don’t believe any information gained for torture should be considered credible. When in that kind of state, a person would say whatever will make the pain stop, whether it be true, or simply what the enforcer wants to hear.
6. I love food. In fact, I learned to cook at a pretty early age. I’d come home from school, be it grade school or high school, and I’d ask my mom the age old question, “What’s for dinner?” She would frequently reply, “I’m not hungry.” – she did this typically on nights when my dad was working late… she didn’t want to have to cook two dinners. She never kept me from cooking my own food, in fact, she’d encourage me to “make enough for my father”. So, I’d dig through the cookbooks – find a recipe where we had all the ingredients and get to work. Many times, I had no idea what I was doing – and I’d call in my mom to help me figure something out. It was when she took the reigns that I’d duck out of the kitchen and let her finish up. Sometimes, I’d finish my own meal without doing this, but typically when I was older. It was great when I was in college – because I’d cook for myself all the time. I was one of the few guys I knew who’d have a girl over for dinner. The days when women did all the cooking are gone, completely gone. I know just as many ladies as guys who don’t know how to cook. You mentioned that you like to bake… and I’m pretty terrible at baking bread and the like. Tell me how you got into it, gimme a recipe to try, and some tips to help me avoid disaster.
I too love food. Honestly moving in with my wife (at the time, my girlfriend) was my motivation to start cooking more so that way we’d not have the same thing every night and let’s face it, I think being a guy that can cook scores some extra points. As for baking, it was the wedding that really got me into it. I’d always enjoy making cakes for people’s birthdays but typically it’d be the Betty Crocker box and jar that made the appearance. Now, don’t get me wrong…sometimes the boxed cake mix is just as good, if not better than some from scratch recipes. The chemicals that the companies have is a lot more extensive than the home cook and you can get extremely good results reproducibly. But there’s just something about a cake from scratch. I’m still exploring the world of baking and my expertise lies probably solely in the world of leavened cakes currently. I’m moving on the cheesecakes (which are technically more of a custard) and breads are next. But back to how I got started. My wife and I were looking into wedding cakes and the price of cakes for a wedding was to me absolutely ridiculous. (more on why it’s not so bad later). Being as stubborn as I am, I said “I’m not going to pay this much for a cake. I can easily do it myself.” I started reading up on baking cakes from scratch, trying different recipes I came across, and from reading, baking as opposed to cooking is more precise. There was a great clip of some chef on the today show. The guy was making some vegetable pasta dish. He just throws in garlic, peppers, onions, etc. and the host asks “Oh how much garlic was that?” to which the chef responded “ I don’t know. Listen cooking is more of a subjective thing. You like garlic? You add a little bit more. You like spice, add some more pepper.”
Baking is the opposite. Baking is a complex dance of chemicals, preparation, and ingredients. The key, to which I still have to get the necessary equipment, is to weigh your ingredients. A lot of recipes simply call for cups, teaspoons, etc. but I can put a cup of all purpose flour on a balance with another cup of flour and the differences you see in the weight will be huge. There are plenty of resources on the web which give average volume to weight ratios. As for the wedding cupcakes. And I’m not kidding about the name, but I made Meyer Limoncello Cupcakes with a Meyer lemon Mousseline Buttercream. (a Meyer lemon is a cross between a mandarin orange and a lemon) This brings me to my thought about why bakeries charge so much for cakes. Not only for the quality of the product, but for the decision and care that must go into ensuring the cake can handle the environment, the delivery, the setup. If I ran a bakery, I’d charge more than some of the other ones based on the experiences I had making my own. In extremely humid conditions, you have to stay away from certain types of frostings because of the hydroscopic nature of the sugar. When using fondant, the covered cake should not be refrigerated because condensation can make the final product look splotchy. Royal icing is dangerous to use on soft buttercream because of the moisture content of the buttercream. My other big suggestion is that you not get discouraged.
Found a saying once that “a sad cupcake is a happy cupcake.” Sad cupcakes/cakes often refer to when the cupcake sinks in the middle. If you put a high tower of frosting on that, who would know? Another example is that the frosting I used for the wedding took me several months to perfect. (only trying on average 1-2 times/mo.) It wouldn’t take you that long if I gave you all of my notes on it because some of the steps were trial and error to find the perfect way to do it. Over beating is another big cake problem. A lot of people over beat cake batters made from scratch which causes lots of issues. A handy resource: http://www.baking911.com/cakes/problems.htm As for a recipe to try, the best bets are in a cookbook called BakeWise. The author is a former chemical engineer and she goes into the science behind why each ingredient is in the cake. There’s reasons why some cakes work in a bundt pan & not in others for example which she goes into. Honestly I think that book & Rose’s books are the only desk reference a baker needs to get anything and everything done with baking.
The best frosting I have ever had is the Mousseline buttercream from the Cake Bible by Rose Levy B.. I don’t own the books though so I have to see if I can find the recipes online. Sort of off the wall cupcakes that I’ve found fun to make are Chockylit’s: http://cupcakeblog.com/
Oooh, I’ll have to go dig through my history on my home computer but Tres Leches Cupcakes with raspberry whipped cream frosting were probably some of the biggest hits I’ve made. Once I find it, I’ll post it in the comments on this post.
7.Here’s the space where you say nice things about me. What are the good qualities you see in me that we share? What are some good qualities in me that we don’t share? Don’t feel the need to just answer these questions – go ahead and expound about how great I am.
My mom always said, if you can’t say anything nice about someone, don’t say anything at all…I kid, I kid. And I’ll focus just on you here, but most of it applies to the rest of the IL players that I’ve met too. (don’t want them to feel left out)
Common: Generous: Honestly when we first met at the IL state, I walked away thinking wow, that you are awesome guy. (I knew some things about you after reading through some of your blog by that point) You seem genuinely eager and willing to help a new guy such as myself learn the ropes, which I too hope to someday be able to do. A lot of times you see experts in fields/sports not willing to do that since it may give them a new challenger, but not you. Being the new guy at that time, I figured most of you would have your own little clique and it’d be tough trying to get in, but quite the opposite which I think speaks to your character in a good way.
Humorous: We both have a sense of humor. My humor tends to be sarcastic, pop culture referenced or random and I thought that if you didn’t have a sense of humor at all, I’d be extremely uncomfortable in any setting outside being across from the table during a game/set, which I’m not. My jokes may not be funny, but at least I can use them.
Committed: From the length of this blog and just from conversations, you’re committed/passionate about air hockey which shows something…not sure what word to put with it as a trait, but it’s a good quality to see that someone feels so strongly about something.
Competitive: You have to be in this sport and a little rivalry/competition never hurt anyone. Uncommon: Not sure about this one. Not that we’re completely the same but my only “bad” (in quotes because I don’t think they’re bad, but others might) qualities are my stubbornness and my slight pessimism at times so if you’re not stubborn or are an optimist, I guess those would be uncommon traits.
8.So, I had a nickname once upon a time. In high school I had a friend who would consistently order a big meal if we were at a restaurant.. eat a couple bites – maybe a quarter of it, and then say he was too full to eat any more. I’d give him a look, and he’d shove his plate over to me. I’m the least picky eater in the world – there’s only one food I don’t like the taste of, and it’s uni (raw sea urchin). So, instead of ordering a full meal myself – I’d get a soda or something and wait for my friend to not eat his… it was great – cheap for me, and we didn’t waste any food. I had earned the nickname, “catfish” for my bottom feeding. The worst example of this was when a bunch of my friends were out drinking… We were pretty wasted and ended up at an all-night diner and my very, very drunk friend ordered biscuits & gravy (he called ‘em “scribbits” for some reason)… I probably had something, too – and my friend ate maybe half of his order… and instead of giving in to my charms – he wraps them up like he’s going to eat them later. I remember being pretty hammered and thinking that my friend was just spiting me and I became strangely fixated on his biscuits & gravy. We’re on the way to his place, and he’s looking pretty green. I say, “man – you’re not looking so good, you’re not going to finish this are you?” He says, “I think I’m going to be sick.” I say, “so, you don’t mind if I have your scribbits?” …and he just shook his head… holding back his vomit. We get back to his place and we roll out of the car. I start eating his scribbits with my fingers – and my friend doesn’t get two steps before he starts throwing up. I’m drunkenly shovelling biscuits and gravy into my mouth while also trying to take care of my friend. I’m mumbling with a full mouth, “Ok buddy, get it all out, that’s good…. Ooh, look out, you’re getting some on me.” – and he threw up on my shoes… Now – we didn’t drive ourselves, and my other – more sober friends are literally rolling around on the ground laughing and crying at this sight. I certainly earned my nickname that night. So… uh.. 2 things – tell me about your nicknames and tell me an embarrassing story about yourself.
That is an awesome story. The only nicknames that I have to my knowledge are something stemming from my last name, Quezada. Q came about because one of my best friends in HS was named Bryan and my other’s brother in law, Brian. So I became Q, named after the Star Trek:TNG character and/or 007’s gadget guy. Q-bert, came around for a little bit and a few people still use it. Some have said Quesadilla but that was short lived. My screenames on instant messaging/user names are usually Sleeper1223 or some variation. Self given/chosen really based on a Dream Theater song character, but also along the lines of being lurking ready to attack or not one to be messed with. Unfortunately, no really funny stories associated with the nicknames themselves.
As for an embarrassing story, I’ll go with one of the drunken adventure one. My first winter in IL, me and a bunch of other first year grad students went out to Sheffield’s. This is way before their remodelling where the seats up on the window where you first entered were just a long bench (with the back against the window) and a ledge in front with candles and wide enough to put drinks down. It’s getting towards the end of the night and we’re a bunch of pitchers of beer in. I just remember leaning on something talking to my friend, pretty wasted. All of the sudden, near my right shoulder, I could swear was getting warmer (I was looking/talking to my left). To my friend, I jokingly slurred “My arm feels warm, am I on fire?” to which I looked down and sure enough, I was on fire. A spot about the size of a softball caught on one of the candles and I blew on it which I think got it going a little bit so I patted it out. Now, after setting oneself on fire, you would think, the bouncer near the door about 6 ft away would kick me out, but they didn’t notice. You would think we’d all leave, but nope, we stuck around and finished our beers. We probably would have stayed longer but I knocked over a beer by accident at one point so we decided it was time to go. But not go home. We went to Chicago Pizza and there’s a photo of me there with this huge smile because I have pizza, and with a hole in my shirt. The nightmares of being on fire only lasted a few months after that where I would wake up flailing thinking the covers were fire. Candles still freak me out if I’m drinking sometimes.
9. Tell me what kind of music you like… my music tastes are all over the place… from obscure electronic and alt-country to soundscapes and alt-rock/pop. I recall seeing some kind of band t-shirt on you. Disturbed or something? Tell me about the music you’re into and how frequently you listen to ‘new’ stuff… and how you hear ‘new’ stuff.
Good memory. It was a Disturbed T-shirt. My tastes are a bit all over, but the foundation lies in the rock and roll & alternative sections. Examples of some of my favorite bands showing some of the spread are: Metallica, Dream Theater, Shinedown, The Beatles, Billy Joel, Megadeth (earlier stuff…starting to lose track of what they’re up to), AC-DC, Everclear, Disturbed, Hootie & the Blowfish, Green Day, Three Days Grace. I could go on and on. Those are just some of the ones I can think of where I have a majority of their collection in my library. It’s hard to explain how I find the songs I like but a lot of times, especially lately because I’m in the car more, I flip amongst the radio and hear newer stuff that way. I go to concerts of the bands I like when I can and from those I see other bands that way. I’m always up for hearing new stuff regardless of the genre and I may or may not like it. I have anywhere from Britney to Garth Brooks to Yanni to Slipknot in my collection.
10. Ok.. so the last couple times we’ve played air hockey at the place on Western, the table is a little bit off. A couple screws could be fixed.. and it really bugged you that you didn’t have anything on you to fix it. I thought it was.. I guess.. interesting that you were so compelled to fix something right then and there. It was like you were a walking MacGyver or something. Where did this compulsion come from and what are some of the things you’ve been compelled to fix over the years?
I think the compulsion lies somewhere in my like of knowing how things work to my stubbornness. Like with the wedding cupcakes, I refused to believe that cakes should cost that much, so I must be able to do it myself. Same goes for fixing things. I know when I’m in over my head and need a professional’s help. (except that one time with the kitchen sink), but there are a lot of simple little things that I think I should be able to fix myself. Maybe it’s me being competitive with me, but I should be no match for a couple loose screws on an air hockey table. (it’s like the table is challenging me to fix it) Also, slightly annoys me that it’s such a simple fix and Waveland hasn’t down it. It’s been going on for a long time now so eventually the database in my head of all little tiny fixes and useless information grows to the point where I can logically figure out little problems that are around. When I can’t fix it, it’s like a direct challenge that I must then beat. Things that I’m compelled to fix: Anything that’s broken….Just off the top of my head, computers are a big thing. I will fix broken computers or figure out what’s wrong with them. (software or hardware) I’ve tried, and failed fixing a waffle iron that wouldn’t stay on. (almost found the work around the temperature interlock that was broken but shorted it out by accident). I’ve fixed a co-worker’s gold bracelet with the spot welder in the lab once. I recently fixed the group’s network printer by throwing the circuit board into a 150 degree oven for 10 minutes. (weirdest fix in awhile). Random household things: shelves, wobbly chairs, leaky faucets, etc. More often than not, I call myself MacGruber rather than McGuyver as a joke. Except for the waffle iron, none of my fixes blow up though.
So there you have it. I like that he used the word ‘hydroscopic’ and that I knew what it meant. I think we covered it all, from torture to cupcakes. Fo’ realz.
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