[Meme snarfed from satyrlovesong and estherchaya]
- Leave a comment saying you want to be interviewed.
- I’ll reply and give you five questions to answer.
- You’ll update your LJ with the five questions answered.
- You’ll include this explanation.
- You ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.
And it just keeps going, and going, and going (hopefully!)
I’ll also add: Let me interview you, and I’ll return the favor.
estherchaya‘s Interview:
Questions:
- I’ve never met anyone with such a strong interest in highway systems that didn’t work with highway systems for a living. How did you first become so interested in highways?
- What do you think are the most important elements of raising a Jewish family?
- I’m a relative new-comer to Computer Security (4-ish years after getting a degree inJewish history and going to law school for a year). What advice would you give to a newbie like me to help shape my career direction?
- What is the largest impact on your life from your wife’s gluten-free lifestyle?
- How did you meet your wife?
Answers:
- I’ve never met anyone with such a strong interest in highway systems that didn’t work with highway systems for a living. How did you first become so interested in highways?
Back when I was young, living in Playa Del Rey, there was this Union 76 station (run by Bill Yarnell, I still remember the name) at Gulana and Manchester where I would stop and pick up maps. I rapidly started collecting gas station maps. I’ve always liked maps. Then, when I was in college, I stumbled upon the book L.A. Freeway: An Appreciative Essay. This got me even more into the highways and the numbering. From there, I got curious about how the highways in California acquired their numbers. This is what really got me started doing the web pages: to find out the rhyme and reason of the numbering.
Of course, as I note, an interest in highways gets one into ancillary interests. I now have an interest in architectural history, Los Angeles history, Los Angeles trolleys and railroads, and gas station architecture.
- What do you think are the most important elements of raising a Jewish family?
One can send one’s child to Religious School (in whatever movement), and if that is the child’s only exposure to Judaism, you can bet they will be in an interfaith marriage. What makes a family Jewish is having a strong Jewish identity. For all movements, this comes from home practices: be it observing Shabbat, going to services as a family, doing daily brachot, having mezuzahs up, having Judaic art up. The fact that the family is Jewish and is proud of it needs to be reinforced daily. If the Judaism is important to the parents, it will be important to the child.
- I’m a relative new-comer to Computer Security (4-ish years after getting a degree inJewish history and going to law school for a year). What advice would you give to a newbie like me to help shape my career direction?
I was a Computer Science major, and thanks to the breadth requirement at UCLA and the fact that Jewish Studies counted as a humanity, did an effective Jewish Studies minor (all but one class with Dr. Deborah Lipstadt).
As for your career direction: First and foremost, find an area in Computer Security that you enjoy. Be it encryption, anti-viral, criteria development, certification and accreditation, security policy development, public policy. If you don’t enjoy it, it won’t last. Second, get involved. Participate on conference committees and get to know the people in the community. I have my reputation not from published papers but from my visible work with ACSAC. This is also a way to keep informed of new developments.
- What is the largest impact on your life from your wife’s gluten-free lifestyle?
I probably eat less junk food. We tend not to keep cookies around the house. We eat less garbage chinese food. Often, I have to make two types of pasta. I’ve learned about cross-contamination, and am very careful with serving utensils and where they have been. I read labels. I subscribe to Kashrus magazine (lovely information on food science).
- How did you meet your wife?
In short: I stole her from another man.
In long: Back in 1979, I was involved with the UCLA Student Chapter of the ACM and the UCLA Computer Club. We decided to participate in the Regional Scholastic Programming Contest, held at CSUN. We did this, and I got to meet the wife of a fellow club member (who wasn’t Jewish). This lady was described as “a fat bitch” to me. I saw her again the following year, and the year after that, as we did the contest.
In 1983, she came to UCLA to take an Extension course. I was teaching for the Computer Club. We started grabbing dinner before our respective classes, and hitting it off. We became friends, and she confided in me how her marriage was falling apart. I helped her and her husband move their apartment from Tarzana to Woodland Hills, where she and I did most of the work, and he just sat there. This was the straw that broke the camels back for her, and she filed for divorce. We continued to see each other (I won’t go into the sordid details, as children might be reading). After her divorce was filed, she moved in with me. After the divorce was final, we realized we wanted to be married to each other. We got married in 1985; we’ve been together now for 19 years!
As an aside, for a number of years we continued to see her ex- (who’s father was active in the LA Chapter of the ACM with me). He remarried, and we met his new wife once at a UCLA Computer Club party. I think he’s still active in LASFS. (I’m sure ixixlix will chime in if I’ve got facts wrong, as she was there for the first marriage. I did have gf_guruilla proof this answer.)
This is why I know that interfaith marriages don’t work.
