Reply to VegasGustan's Questions

Okay, here are the answers to VegasGustan's five questions. I answered question #1 last because the answer tied into my response to question #5. I'll come up with questions for those of you who have requested to be interviewed and post them by tomorrow.
HAPPY FRIDAY!

#2. You and Jay Leno are stuck on an island together how long to you give it before you kill him or yourself?
I bet Jay’s not a bad guy. I suppose I could get pretty sick of listening to him whine about how much he misses his collection of expensive cars, but I can imagine a lot worse people to be trapped with. (I can imagine a lot more pleasant people to be trapped with too, but we won’t go there.)

#3. What is the single most romantic thing you have ever done?
While I’m definitely a romantic, I’m not particularly creative. Maybe that’s why I’m so drawn to people who are. So I’m going to tell you how my ex proposed because it was probably the most romantic thing I ever experienced. (Is that okay??) My ex and I began dating while he was in Tennessee for the summer, home from graduate school at Duke in North Carolina. It was naturally very sad the day he had to go back to school – a good 5-6 hour drive away. It was a Sunday. We said our good-byes after church and he left. When I got home, I discovered that he had come by after I’d left for church and stuck a note to my door. On the note was the first stanza of a love poem he’d written, along with a lot of numbered lines. He told me to look for the rest of the poem. In the house I found a number of yellow post-it notes with numbers and lines of the poem. Over the next several months, I received other lines in various ways. One came with the card delivered with flowers to my office. One came in an anonymous email. Several more were left in various places during his visits to Tennessee. When he came home for Christmas, I was missing only the very last line of the poem. I got it on Christmas Eve. It was inside the box with the engagement ring. Can everybody say, “Awwww…..”?

#4. What do you consider the worst insult one can throw at another?
To call someone worthless. We all want to believe we provide some value through our existence.

#5. (James Lipton Moment Paraphrased) What will God say when you reach Heaven?
I struggled with this one. I have absolutely no idea to speculate seems somehow pretentious. There’s a song by Ray Boltz called “Thank You”. I’d like to imagine a scenario like the one described in that song. The story goes, a man was asked to give the euology at his father’s funeral. His father, a barber, had been a kind but simple man, who had never accomplished anything particularly note-worthy during his lifetime. The son fell asleep, still struggling with what he should say during the service the following day. That night, he dreamed about his father arriving in Heaven. People kept approaching his father, thanking him for the small things he had done which had had a huge impact on their lives. A missionary thanked him for the small donation he’d made to his mission; a man who he had taught in Sunday school thanked him for the lessons that had influenced his life. Like in the movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life”, the concept of how we often impact the lives of others far more than we realize, has always intrigued me. I know that I’ve been literally amazed at how greatly the people I have met through blogging have touched my life. Hoss, Paul, Cowboy, Amanda, Hof and particularly Kira and Lejnd have all said or done things to personally influence me in some way. Every blogger I visit on a regular basis has at some point said something that has touched my life by causing me to look at something from a different perspective or by just letting me know that I’m not alone in the problems I face. Isn’t that why we develop a group of blogs we frequent? because they tend to touch us in some way?

#1. When you come to Vegas in April what are you most excited about?
I moved this question to the end, even though it was by far the easiest to answer, because the answer ties into my answer to the previous question. I’m most excited about meeting the people who have entered my life through blogging. Many of them have become real FRIENDS and I’m so anxious to meet them in person.

NOTE: I SHOULD LOG MY 6,000 VISITOR BY MONDAY OR TUESDAY. THANK YOU! TO PARAPHRASE (OR PERHAPS MORE ACCURATELY, TO RIDICULE) SALLY FIELDS, "YOU LOVE ME...YOU REALLY LOVE ME!"