About

I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Kenyan refugees, I write award-winning operas, and manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row.

I woo women with my sensuous and god-like trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook thirty-minute brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru. Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handily defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I had trials with Manchester United, and I am the subject of numerous documentaries.

When I’m bored, I build large suspension bridges in my garden. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after work, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.

I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie.

Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don’t perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have appeared on Through the Keyhole and won the gold plaque. Last summer I toured Eastern Europe with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I run the 100m in 9.57 secs. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles.

Children trust me, I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy and I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Uzbekistan, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.

I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down.

I have made extraordinary four course meals using only some vegetables and a Breville Toaster. I breed prize winning clams.

I have won bullfights in Madrid, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and chess competitions at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis twice (before and after his death).

Unfortunately, the afore mentioned adventures have side-tracked me from putting together a serious “About Me” section. Until I get around to it, I have filled out the Proust Questionnaire which is designed to expose one’s personality. Its name and modern popularity as a form of interview is owed to the responses given by the French writer Marcel Proust.

What is your current state of mind?
Content.

What is your greatest fear?
Sharks (specifically the Great White).

What or who is the greatest love of your life?
My gorgeous wife Lisa and my adorable step-daughter Natalie.

What is your most marked characteristic?
My red hair and ruddy complexion.

What do you most value in your friends?
Trust-worthiness.

Which talent would you most like to have?
To hit a golf ball like Tiger Woods (minus the cocktail waitress fetish).

Who are your favorite writers?
Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, C. S. Lewis, Charles Dickens, Dr. Seuss, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jules Verne, Khaled Hosseini, Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, Salman Rushdie, and Stephen King.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Christmas Eve on the couch watching Home Alone with Lisa and Natalie listening to Natalie laugh uncontrollably (as only a child can) when the Wet Bandits fall prey to Kevin’s (Macaulay Culkin) booby traps.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Cynicism.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Two-faced.

What is your greatest extravagance?
I have been an ardent U2 fan since the early 90′s which has resulted in me accumulating over 300 U2 albums, singles, and bootlegs .

What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Confidence.

Which living person do you most despise?
While there are a handful of folks I find less than appealing, I despise no one (dead or alive).

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Nothing.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Losing a loved one.

What is your favorite occupation?
Any occupation that offers challenge at the beginning, education in the middle and the satisfaction of a job well done at the end.

Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
Hercule Poirot, Sherlock Holmes and Tom Sawyer.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
“Cool” and “Right”

When and where were you happiest?
Unexpectedly receiving an NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) for Christmas in the mid-80′s. My brothers and I liked to guess what our gifts were prior to opening them so our parents wrapped a brick with a note instructing us to go upstairs where the NES was hidden. Never saw it coming!

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Trying to be a good husband and father (work in progress).

Where would you like to live?
Where I live now, Conception Bay South, Newfoundland, Canada.

What is your most treasured possession?
Memories.

Who are your heroes in real life?
My Mom and Dad.

What is it that you most dislike?
Tailgaters (I selflessly try to re-educate them by unexpectedly braking but it’s a thankless profession).

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?
Unquestionably…a catfish (family inside joke).

What is your greatest regret?
Not leveraging what I have been undeservedly given in life to help those that are in need.

How would you like to die?
Before my loved ones.

What is your motto?
“Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: It might have been.” – Maud Muller by John Greenleaf Whittier