Interview with the Curt Jester

The following is an interview based on questions from the group blog DeoOmnisGloria.com

Jeff Miller at the Curt Jester has also jumped into the DeoOmnisGloria ring for an interview. As before, I’ll add a link as soon as Jeff has posted his answers. Here’s the questions:

1) Obviously comedy is a key component of the Curt Jester’s repertoire. Were you always the ‘class clown’?

Actually yes I have been the class clown from the beginning. Those in my school labeled any bad joke a "Jeff Miller" Joke. I remember going to lunch with my father and a friend of his at a restaurant that was decorated with wood shingles on the wall, I told them that I had never been in a shingles bar before. I am one of those shy people that will sit back quietly, but unafraid to tell a bad joke in front of a group of people. Comedy was not part of my blog conception when I first started blogging with my Atheist to a Theist blog. I mainly started to blogging to let out the steam after listening to talk radio through the day and to also try to look at news stories from the viewpoint of my Catholic faith. Victor Lams with his often funny blog et cetera didn't get chased out of St. Blogs with his sense of humor so I started to interject my humor into my blog.

2) I can’t find much on your background at the Curt Jester (I’m one to talk . . .). I know that you are a programmer, a supporter of the military, and a convert like myself. Any other interesting factoids about your life you’d like to let us in on?

I am a retired Navy Chief that started out as another boiler plate Oregon liberal. Visiting a large part of the world I started seeing that the U.S. was not quite the evil place that I had thought and as I started to raise a family I came to believe in both the permanence of marriage and that there were such things as moral truths. I maintained my strident atheism even while becoming increasingly pro-life and conservative. At the Easter Vigil in 1999 I was received into the Catholic Church.

I play guitar (badly), listen to hard rock. Read Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and now books on the faith. I currently work as a programmer to develop courseware to train the pilots and maintenance crews for the Army Apache, Blackhawk and Chinook aircraft.

I have been married for 23 years and have two grown children. My wife, unlike me, is perfectly normal and a cradle Catholic to boot.

3) My all-time favorite post of your is the Blogging Ten Commandments. What’s your personal favorite?

That is like asking which is your favorite child, but I liked the way Liturgy for Ignoramuses turned out.

4) You’ve been blogging almost since blogging was invented (a little stretch), what would be your advice for new, Catholic bloggers?

St. Blogs was pretty well developed when I started blogging over a year ago. My advice would be to pace yourself. I see many blogs that start out posting five to ten stories a day and then grind to a halt. This pace is impossible to maintain, unless you have super-human blogging strength like Kevin Miller. Identify your strengths and utilize them. St. Blog parishioners have various talents and abilities which makes them all interesting.

5) Who would you like to see as the next Pope (I love this question)?

I could cop out and say whoever the Holy Spirit chooses. I don't know enough about all the current cardinals to make a informed guess. I pretty much ignore who the press anoints as papable, I doubt if Karol Joseph Wojtyla was considered papable. If we could have another Pope half as Holy as our current Pope; we would be doing well. I don't envy a future enclave at all in finding someone with both an active prayer life and good administrative skills.