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What are your favorite brands and why?
I used to think that some brands were better than others, and I guess there is truth to that if the spectrum of better & worse were just limited to this topic.
Google has achieved carbon neutral status. Patagonia believes in being responsible for the environment as well as inspiring its customers to be the same.
But, even these causes do not mask the other things that the companies do that out strip the good the pet causes do.
First, we have Google and all of their data policies that target their ads at us & jeopardize our digital identities.
Then Patagonia with the accusations of sub-standard working conditions within its supply chain.
So while brands may exist all along the spectrum ranging in a best to worst alignment, I find it very difficult to believe a brand exists that truly falls on the ‘good’ half of the spectrum.
So just like these brands don’t care about us in any real way, I hold no loyalty to any of them.
You’re going on a cross-country trip. Airplane, train, bus, car, or bike?
For any short duration (10 days or less) trip from one side of the USA to the other, the only logical answer is by airplane. It just takes too long via any other method.
For those in Europe or other countries where you can drive or take a non-bullet train to another country in any direction in under 24 hours, the USA is HUGE! Roughly 2800 miles or 4500 kilometers from coast to coast. If you were driving alone, sleeping a normal schedule & obeying all traffic laws, you could drive from Seattle (the furthest northwest major city in the lower 48) to Miami (the furthest southeast major city in the lower 48) in roughly 3.5-4 entire days!
If you had 2 friends, each driving 8 hours, one navigating for 8 hours, and the other sleeping for 8 hours, you could do it in about 2.5 days of continual driving while stopping only for gas, food & bio-breaks.
But if I had infinite time & money? Car no question. I have more control over my itinerary and if I want to stop and check out something interesting, I can do that without being beholden to anyone else’s schedule. Maybe break it up with a train now & again to get to some places it’s not practical to drive a car through, like the American Southwest.
Where would you go on a shopping spree?
Wife & I have talked quite a bit about this.
If we won a “Never Work Again” amount of money, the first thing we would do is renovate our house, so Home Depot.
The next thing we would do is build me a workshop, so again… Home Depot.
But for me alone… Watch dealers in Switzerland.
This is all academic though. We never play the lottery.
Do you enjoy your job?
There’s an oxymoron. Job enjoyment. I mean I enjoy not being homeless. I enjoy not being hungry. But if my basic needs were covered, would I still work where I work or do what I do? No…
I would instead be a maker of things. I have ideas that cannot take flight. I want to let them soar, but the weight of many past decisions are tough to overcome.
What advice would you give to your teenage self?
Be uncomfortable doing new things.
Work hard now.
It really is ‘who you know’ over ‘what you know’.
Know yourself. Figure out what your deal breakers are & what you’re willing to compromise on.
HAVE deal breakers.
Interview yourself from the perspective of job interviews & dating.
Interview prospective employers & spouses just like they are interviewing you.
Be kind in disagreements.
What is your favorite drink?
When I drank alcohol, Rum & Coke was my favorite. I still get the occasional hankering for one, but no.
However, we will tell a story of my not favorite drink; Orange Crush.
Picture it: August 1987, scout camp the weekend before school started. A motley group of scouts are traveling into the wilderness to earn some merit badges & leave their parents to do whatever they do after sending one of their four children off to scout camp. Board games? Who knows.
Anyway, I load up on some Orange Crush, candy orange slices and proceed to consume a 2-liter of soda & a pound of candy in about 2 hours. We get to camp, setup and it’s lights out.
Next morning, I’m not feeling so hot. Upset stomach, puking my guts out, can’t eat, fever. I make it through the rest of camp & get back home, thinking my gluttony from the night before just wacked out my digestion for a bit, I just got to bed, thinking I’ll be better in the morning.
Morning comes with me having puked out everything I tried to eat or even drink over the last 36 hours; usually within 15 minutes of ingesting anything. Yes, even just water.
Well, we will give it another day. And another, and then another until I have missed school for the 1st 4 days of 9th grade.
Early Friday morning, I have the WORST stomach pain imaginable to a 15 year old kid. I beg my mom to take me to the doctor. We end up at Instacare, a semi-urgent care clinic, where after a couple of questions, pokes with fingers and then needles, we are told my white blood cell count (your body’s defense mechanism) is ELEVATED elevated. The doctor has diagnosed me with not only acute appendicitis, but also a likely ruptured appendix and we should immediately go to the hospital for emergency surgery.
After the surgery, a second surgery to retrieve a forgotten sponge and my wound being left unstitched in case of another surgery and an additional 8 weeks of recovery time before attending my first day of 9th grade, that dear reader, is why of all the beverages I will drink, orange sodas are my least favorite drinks.
Are you patriotic? What does being patriotic mean to you?
I live in the USA and believe me, we have our share of patriotism. A million different versions of it.
I believe the USA is the greatest country in the world, even though it has some serious problems. I believe in the ideal of America, before it was immediately corrupted by compromise. The “all men are created equal” version. This version could learn a lot from other countries in a few areas.
Yeah, I’m patriotic, but I’m no jingoist.
Have you ever unintentionally broken the law?
It’s funny, what we consider a law that we need to obey all the time (usually involving acts of violence or theft) and ones we can usually get away with (speeding & similar).
If anyone says they have not intentionally broken the law, you should be very wary about trusting that person. Not necessarily saying they are lying, but additional vetting should be done before believing them. It could be that their intentional law breaking is so infrequent that they honestly do not remember doing it. Or maybe they’ve convinced themselves it wasn’t really breaking the law.
Thinking about this, I’ve broken laws too many times to even attempt to count.
The one that sticks out the most was back in my early 20’s. I was a McWorker and not making much money. I needed to re-register my vehicle, but having fun was more important than jumping through the government’s hoops when the car didn’t stop working because it was unlicensed. This was before law enforcement had internet & computers in their car, so if you were careful or just stupidly lucky, you could still drive as long as you didn’t get pulled over.
I only intended to delay it a couple of weeks, waiting for payday. After 8 months of making sure I turned into the next road or parking lot whenever a cop was behind me, I finally broke down & renewed my vehicle registration.
Of course, I still drive 5-10 mph over the limit all the time now, but 99% of the rest of our citizenry does as well, so is it really breaking the law if law enforcement isn’t actually enforcing the law?
What’s your worst or funniest intentional breaking the law story?
If someone wrote a biography about me, what would the title be?
As a kid, I was always one of the smartest in the class, but I was never really popular. I had a few friends, but even now, I struggle with making & keeping friends. I never completed college. Life, my inaccurate perception of what life should be and my decisions based on that mistaken image got in the way.
After my parents died, when I was 18 & 23, my divorce, going to jail for one of the lamest reasons ever (no hate to law enforcement. The lameness was on me), being essentially homeless for a couple of years, and suffering from low self-esteem, I do all right now. However, I’ll never be rich unless there’s a miracle and I’ll likely never be able to retire.
I suppose my biography should be called Potential: Lost & Found.
What were your parents doing at your age?
I’m definitely not the person that needs to respond to this prompt, but the show must go on, right? At my current age, my parents were doing the same thing they’ve been doing for the past 28 & 33 years; resting in peace.
Stories and Musings of J. Todd Hubbard 