Blogger Award – Leonberger Life

I’ve been nominated for the Sunshine Blogger Award by Laura, from Black Moon Lilith Thank you for the nomination, Laura! It was a nice birthday gift.

The picture says Sunshine Blogger Award, and, in the background, there are a lot of sun flowers. — Sunshine Blogger Award

Check out her blog for lots of great posts which feature poetry, short stories, very cool pictures, and other interesting things!

Without further ado, here are the rules which I’ve copied from Lauras’s blog:

Display the award’s official logo somewhere on your blog.
Thank the person who nominated you.
Provide a link to your nominator’s blog.
Answer your nominators’ questions.
Nominate up to 11 bloggers.
Ask your nominees 11 questions.
Notify your nominees by commenting on at least one of their blog posts.

Eleven Questions for Me

Below are my answers to Lauras’s eleven questions. I have not yet learned how to create the kind of pictures that Laura creates. That’s for another time.

Question 1 : What’s your favorite brand of coffee? If you don’t drink coffee, what do you like to drink? (Tea, etc)

I drink Green Mountain Nantucked the most, but I really like Gevalia the best.

Question 2 : What’s the most creative lie you’ve ever told?

I never lie. Well, that’s my most creative lie.

Question 3 : What’s the last dream you had (that you feel comfortable sharing)? If you’re in the “don’t dream” camp, what would you like to dream about?

I dream about traveling a lot. My last very memorable dream was about traveling on a big boat. On the boat I met several people from my youth in Sweden. Then I needed to go to the bathroom, but I could not find it. Every boat should have well-advertised good bathrooms but the boat in my dream didn’t.

Question 4 : What was the most favorite job you’ve held in your lifetime?

I think that was when I was a robotics research assistant at Sandia National Laboratory the summer of 1993. I was new to the United States, I had just received a green card, and I was working at a well-regarded national laboratory located inside a major US Airforce base. Everything was secret. The lab next to us received a Soviet satellite carrying a small nuclear power reactor that summer. The US did not know how to build a mini nuclear reactor at the time so reverse engineering this reactor was a big deal. I would like to point out that I was not part of that. I only heard about it. Another fun job was when I designed the portion of the electronics for a Swedish fighter jet called JAS Gripen.

Humanoid robots and several orange industrial robots. MLP Mechanized industry robot and robotic arms for assembly in factory production. Concept of artificial intelligence for industrial revolution and automation manufacturing process. — Mechanized industry robot and robotic arms for assembly in factory production. Shutterstock Asset id: 2459375613 by Summit Art Creations.

Question 5 : What motivated you to start blogging?

I wanted to start a blog to advertise my upcoming dog book “The Life and Times of Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle”. I asked my friend Alex Diaz-Granados for advice, and he helped me get started on WordPress.com. Later on, I continued blogging mostly because it became a hobby and I started a second blog superfactful, which has nothing to do with my book. The goal of this blog is to create a long list of facts that are important, not trivia, and that are known to be true yet are either disputed by large segments of the public or highly surprising or misunderstood by many.

The gold and beige book cover features the face of our Leonberger Bronco and the text "The Life and Times of Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle. Stories and Tips from Thirteen Years with a Leonberger." — This is the front cover of the book “The Life and Times of Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle”. Click here or on the image to go to the United States Amazon location for the paperback version of the book.

Question 6 : What are you grateful for?

I am grateful for my wife and kids, my whole family, my dog(s) current and past, and what they gave me. I am grateful that I am alive and that I can experience our beautiful nature, the night sky, and everything there is to know and understand.

Question 7 : What’s something nice you did for yourself recently?

We went on a great ski trip to Breckenridge, Colorado. I skied the Imperial Bowl, which is served by the highest ski lift in the western hemisphere. The Imperial Bowl is big and wide and mostly empty and there was a lot of powder snow. We had a very good time together as a family.

Question 8 : If you could partake in any new endeavor, experience, or hobby, regardless of time constraints or money, what would it be?

I would like to get a degree in Astro Physics as a retirement project, but not for a future career. That would be a huge time commitment and probably expensive and maybe weird too, considering my goal is not a career in the field. However, I like to know things about how the world works and I like to know things about the Universe.

Question 9 : What do you like to do to keep your brain active?

When I was still working as a software engineer / robotics engineer I kept my brain active because of my work. Since I took my early retirement, I need to keep my brain busy in other ways. I read a lot of books, I wrote a book, I blog, I am learning French, I am a volunteer for an organization called Citizens Climate Lobby, which focuses a lot on specific legislation that I need to study, I brew beer, and well OK drinking beer may not be keeping my brain active but it is a hobby as well.

Question 10 : What do you like to do to keep your body active?

I jog and I like to swim in my in-law’s pool. My wife and I used to go bicycling a lot. We have not done that for a while, but I think we’ll soon pick that back up again.

Question 11 : What is your favorite thing about spending time out in nature?

I love a lot of things about nature. I cannot pick one specific thing. I love the forest. The quiet, the solitude, the tranquility, the berries, the birds singing, the beautiful trees and the vegetation, the smell, the hills, the scenery, and seeing some animals too. I just don’t like to encounter a bear.